


Somewhere Between Life and Death

by Nightfall (RealmOfTan)



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Caregiving, Drugs, Emotional Support, Human Trafficking, M/M, Murder, Rape, Suicide Attempt, early stages of love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 23:00:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9629003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RealmOfTan/pseuds/Nightfall
Summary: Legally dead but still alive. It is like being a living dead, existing somewhere between life and death; being slightly more alive than dead, but not entirely alive. To Slaine, this has stopped to matter a long time ago and is living by the unwritten but absolute rules in the areas of Shinawara where communal emptiness is widespread – trying to push through one day at a time. When his situation changes for the worse and he thinks nothing can help him and despair is consuming him, someone reaches out a gentle hand and offers him help.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a submission to the Aldnoah.Zero Anthology project made possible by the awesome Rosiel and OrangeBat team, and I'm really grateful to get to be a part of this along with other amazing authors from this fandom. For more information about this project and the future game where you can get a hard copy of this anthology - with lots of yummy and cute and sweet and angsty stories -, please check the [official OrangeBat Sanctuary website](http://www.orangebat-sanctuary.com/) and/or the [O.B.S. Tumblr](https://orangebatsanctuary.tumblr.com/) and/or [O.B.S. Twitter](https://twitter.com/InaSlainctuary)! (^0^)

Lights.

Shadows.

The sounds of a busy street.

All the stimuli around him were loud enough it felt like his mind would split in two. People surrounding him moved in slow-motion and paid no heed to the young man staggering through the street with wounds beneath his messily buttoned coat. The scabs had ripped open and blood had stained the sweater on both the front and back, and a couple of blood streaks had dried on the hand hanging limply at his side while he clutched the high collar of the brown coat with the other, pulling it away to ease his breathing. He was still stiff from having lain unconscious outside, and his skin was numb from the cold.

‘ _Why?_ ’ he thought sluggishly and swallowed down the nausea that pushed in his throat, not caring about the wounds since he was already covered with scars from previous attacks. ‘ _Why is it so noisy?_ ’

The area was not supposed to be this lively according to his memory. Not now. The district would not have come alive until night pulled its darkness around the buildings, since that was when the degraded people dared to venture out for a visit in the underworld; teens and young adults were trying to find a quick fix to get a break from their either boring or broken lives, while middle-aged men and women roamed the streets in search for a warm body to share their lonely night with. No one bothered about the price too much; desperate people were ready to sell their soul for a quick and temporary solution to their broken lives.

Slaine leaned his back against a brick wall of a tall building for support to rest. The wall felt taller than it should and, for a second, he thought it would topple over him. He shook his head quickly to clear his muddy mind and realized it was already dark on the streets.

‘ _What time is it?_ ’

He raised his left arm that felt heavier than usual, and had to put great effort into raising it close enough to get a clear look of the cheap digital wristwatch.

“01:52…” he mumbled with a groan and dropped his arm back to his side.

It was already in the middle of the night and he realized he must have been out cold for more than…

‘ _How many hours is that?_ ’ he thought and tried to do the math, but his mind refused to cooperate. ‘ _When did I leave home even?_ ’

Slaine realized he had no idea where he was or what he had been doing – a usual side effect of a strong anxiolytic drug used in an incorrect way. All he knew was his body hurt all over as if someone had been beating him with brass knuckles and cut his skin with a jagged pocket knife. All he could do right now was to be grateful for the aftereffect of whatever drug he had gotten into his system. It numbed him.

Suddenly something disgusting pushed in his throat and he leaned forward out of reflex, releasing all of his stomach’s content onto the asphalt. It was nothing more than gastric acid that splashed onto the ground. Tears sprung to his eyes as he stared at the disgusting puddle in front of his feet while the acid burned in his throat. His limbs began to tremble and cold sweat broke out on his chest and face.

‘ _Where am I…?_ ’

Slaine had no idea what had happened to him. He had woken up in a back alley from the strong stench only a back alley in a rundown district could have. Someone had forced a drug into him – he was sure of it since he could not remember taking anything himself – and had been taken to the back alley for a beating and other unknown abuse. Once finished, they had left him there.

‘ _Nothing too unusual_ ,’ he sighed.

The emptiness of his stomach made him feel like vomiting again.

He had to get home. Slaine knew it was important to get off the streets and crawl down into the safety of his bed. The nights in the rundown districts were dangerous and, even if Slaine was used to that kind of life, he was an easy victim for someone’s sadistic mind due to his livelihood. On top of that, he being a blond foreigner increased the danger on the streets of Shinawara’s red-light district, where foreigners were sold behind closed doors by both immoral and amoral pimps like some kind of exotic creatures.

Using the wall as support, Slaine slowly began to walk. He tried to look around and see any kind of sign or street he recognized and finally set his eyes on a bright neon pink sign of a fluorescent stripper. He recognized it immediately and learned the location of where he was.

Relief filled his being. He was not completely lost.

Slowly and steadily, without eye contact with anyone and not saying a word to anybody, he began walking along the walls on the busy street, brushing his shoulder against them like a shy cat. Slaine made carefully sure not to catch anyone’s attention despite the sickly state he was in. If he simply was what he was, as someone recovering from a high, no one would bother with him as long as he avoided eye contact. Victims like that were not usually interesting for those who bathed in the diffuse lights of the streets, and Slaine knew that.

A group of teenagers, all dressed in nice clothes that revealed their inexperience on these streets, walked by him and yelled and laughed about something about buying pills. If the kids who romanticized this kind of world only knew how dangerous it truly was, that this world was not an edgy place to have fun in, in any way. This world would eat them alive if they made a mistake. Just a little slip – that was all it took. Owe the wrong person a puny amount of money and they would stab you just for fun as retribution. Say a bad word to the wrong person and they would beat your face beyond recognition and give you severe brain damage simply because they could.

There was never any logic or reasoning behind that kind of abuse – only lunacy and violent emotions that ignored the words that begged for forgiveness. The true criminals would use any excuse they could find to hurt and even kill, and naïve teenagers met that kind of fate every other day. Slaine had stopped bothering with warning new arrivals; they refused to listen anyway, and he let these kids pass and disappear into the shadow of an alley with their bag of pills – soon to be devoured by the dangerous strangers lurking in the same shadows.

It was a collectively rundown world filled with communal melancholy, and Slaine had no choice but to survive in it. Someone else saw to it that escaping it was not an option, and he had gotten used to it and knew nothing better. His mind had been somewhat desensitized from living like this for five years, from ever since his father had committed suicide when Slaine had been fourteen years old, and, even if he wanted to stop walking the streets, he would only be snatched back by those he worked for if he tried to run.

He found his way back to the apartment building in the sunken suburb of Shinawara. The walk had felt like an eternity due to his exhausted and wounded body. With heavy steps, he ascended the stairs to the third floor, since the elevator had been out of order for as long as he had lived here, and he reached a trembling hand to the handle of the door. It was open as usual; the keys had been lost a long time ago with no spare keys to replace them, and the landlord could not bother to change the lock. It had been like that for a couple of years now and Slaine never knew who waited behind that door; it was not too unusual to find runaway kids finding shelter in the apartment.

“You found your way back, idiot?” a ridiculing voice said from the back of the apartment that was nearly pitch black, was it not for a couple of candles shedding a golden light in the living room behind the corner.

Slaine did not answer and instead closed the door before continuing to take off his coat. As he steered his steps toward his room, he heard someone walk out from the living room and Trillram appeared in front of him. The man got a wide sneer on his face when he saw Slaine’s state and laughed like he had heard a funny joke.

“I thought you would rot in that alley,” Trillram said proudly.

‘ _So you had something to do with this?_ ’ Slaine thought and found he was not surprised at all.

Trillram enjoyed bullying him, and leaving him passed out in an alley was something Slaine could expect from the young man a little now and then when something bothered him.

“I’m too tired,” Slaine mumbled weakly and leaned against the wall next to the door into his room. “Not now…”

“Trying to give me orders?” Trillram’s disgustingly amused voice asked and the man stepped closer to loom over the blond like a hungry dog.

Slaine felt himself shrink at the spot beneath the man’s shadow – a moment of weakness which resulted in giving Trillram an impulse to exercise power over him. The man grabbed Slaine’s shoulders and slammed his back against the wall hard enough Slaine lost his breath for a short moment and dropped his coat on the floor. The blond coughed and lost strength in his muscles, and he was about to sink to the floor from the hit and pain in his wounds. Trillram did not let him, though. His strong hands kept Slaine pinned against the wall.

“I actually got a great deal today,” the man hissed right in front of him.

‘ _What deal?_ ’ Slaine thought and turned his face away from the other; Trillram’s breath was horrible from not having brushed his teeth for several days.

“Sixty-thousand yen…” Trillram whispered into Slaine’s ear. A horrifying chill ran down his spine; it was a big sum, and Slaine wondered what on earth Trillram had sold to get his hands on so much money. “Some sadistic foreigners wanted to buy you. You know the sick hobbies of some rich kids, right; red rooms and stuff like that? Would have been nice, huh?; to have your guts bleeding out after a knife to the stomach just because someone paid to see it.”

The young man tried to scare him. It was an everyday tactic for him to get a cheap laugh on Slaine’s behalf. Trillram’s threats were nothing new. Slaine had grown used to them, but, just like he had gotten used to hearing exaggerated threats from him, Slaine had also learned there was some kind of truth to them.

The blond did not want to know what the foreigners had done, and so he did not ask; it was easier that way. All he knew was he had been beaten and had shallow cuts over his arms, chest and back. That was enough for him.

When Slaine did not react, Trillram quickly got bored and tried to find the amusement he had lost:

“Then of course, I didn’t sell you to the red room-scene. Instead, since I’m such a nice person, I let them play around as you were-“

“STOP!” Slaine yelled at the top of his lungs, interrupting Trillram in midsentence, and the man let go of him immediately from surprise.

Slaine did not want to hear it. He did not want to know. It would be better that way, gentler for his frail mind that needed protection with every means possible. If being unaware of what people had done to him was a way to cope, then so be it; there was no reason to even bother caring about it.

“Whatever they did… I don’t want to know…” he then quietly mumbled as his mind began spinning from his sudden outburst. He was so weak the adrenaline hit him like a sledgehammer.

Trillram stared at him in surprise for a moment as Slaine pushed himself against the wall to keep his body standing. He glared at the man from the sudden anger he had managed to summon – that disgusting excuse for a human being who toyed with whatever he got his hands on until it broke.

Why did he have to live with him? Why could he not get an apartment that was only his? Then he remembered: Cruhteo had put Slaine beneath the same roof as Trillram because it was cheaper that way; neither of them would be able to pay him the rent of an apartment alone.

They needed each other financially.

Slaine knew Trillram wanted him there. He knew the man simply wanted a drug addict weaker than him accompanying him to let the frustration out on someone who could not fight back. Slaine had to admit he wanted to have Trillram there as well, since without the other man he would probably starve and freeze to death. Despite their dysfunctional and destructive living conditions, they still looked out for each other as they had no choice but to do so. Without Trillram there, Slaine would have been forced to work for easy money much harder than he did now, to pay for his living expenses.

Slaine dared not fight him. Trillram was not kind and simple emotions propelled him. It was difficult to know when such a simple emotion would explode due to Trillram’s erratic behavior of a drug addict, making it impossible to predict the other’s actions, and Slaine was constantly at risk of being caught in the blast.

“How dare you?” Slaine heard Trillram hiss.

The moment Slaine heard it, he knew he should just stay put and not argue. He resigned himself to the man’s whim and made himself ready. Within the blink of an eye, he was wrestled down to the floor.

Slaine let himself fall. Giving up was all he could bother doing since Trillram would not forgive him if he fought back. The man controlled the supply to the drug Aldnoah that both of them were addicted to. If he fought him, Trillram would cut back on the drugs and the life under the same roof would become a living hell.

‘ _Isn’t it a hell already?_ ’ Slaine wondered as he stared at Trillram yelling something at him in a fit of anger.

The dark-haired young man’s patience was terrible. His face was red from the power in his voice, but, no matter how loud Trillram yelled, Slaine did not hear it.

‘ _A hell…_ ’ It sure was, but then again, the relief he got from the drugs made the hell bearable enough to keep going. ‘ _Go toward what?_ ’ he thought.

Nothing. The future was empty.

‘ _Why do I keep going?_ ’

Then a picture of a young woman flickered into his mind in the same manner as a dying lightbulb struggled to shed light into a darkened room. How could he have forgotten? Had he broken down enough to disremember his guardian angel watching over him in his fantasy?

Then again, it had been three years since he had seen her. He wondered what she was up to, if she was safe and still living clueless about how vast the dark world her grandfather and late father had built was. She knew Slaine was caught in shadows, but he had been able to masterfully keep the entire truth from her in order to let her shoulders be as light as they were. She deserved better than worrying about him – the son who had been left alone in the world with his father’s debts dangling from his shoulders.

‘ _Asseylum…_ ’

The moment he found his happy place of seeing her in his mind, a sharp pain struck his cheek as he was hit – pulling him back to reality – and a loud voice yelled:

“Are you listening to me, you piece of shit?!”

“I’m listening…” Slaine lied with a sigh and closed his eyes. He turned his head away from the other and pushed the hurting cheek against the cool but dirty floor to soothe the pain, and felt the stinging feeling slowly subside. “I’m sorry,” he then mumbled despite knowing Trillram probably had forgotten what those words meant.

Trillram went quiet for a while and Slaine waited. At first he waited patiently, but, when nothing happened, he opened his eyes and looked up at his assaulter from the corner of his eye. The man was scheming something; he wore a contemplating look as he intently stared at Slaine.

For a moment, Slaine thought the young man was looking at him not because he hated him, but because he saw something in Slaine that made it impossible to look away. It was a look Trillram gave him now and then, as if Slaine had something he wanted.

‘ _He’s needy…_ ’ Slaine thought and turned his face toward the man again.

Without a word, he unbuckled his own belt and opened his pants while staring at Trillram with empty eyes, and then carefully and weakly turned around, facing the filthy floor despite his wounds hurting. Trillram was quick to grab the chance and hurriedly fumbled with his pants. Slaine inhaled tiredly, held his breath just for a short moment, and exhaled. The musky breath made the grains of dirt on the floor weakly tumble and roll away from his dry lips, and Slaine watched the floor fog over with each breath while Trillram finished fumbling with both of their worn jeans.

“Behave…” the man murmured with silent excitement and put his hands above Slaine’s wrists to pin him against the floor, degrading the blond like Trillram always did during these occasions.

Slaine decided to let the other play until he was satisfied, and endured the act with pained moans and gasps until the thrusting was over.

It was quick, just like it had always been. It was uncomfortable and slightly painful, just like it always was. Slaine did not make a sound except strained, quiet breaths – bearing the humiliation since he knew there was something at the end of these disgusting roads that was worthwhile.

This should have not been as uncomfortable as it was. Trillram was a client right now after all, who would pay for what he took from the blond. Then again, Slaine figured it was stressful since Trillram was a client he could not run away from, unlike the others he met on the streets in the red-light district and slum. He could avoid and not see his clients every day, but he lived beneath the same miserable roof as Trillram, making it impossible to build a professional distance to the man. The clients on the streets bought another kind of Slaine, but, right now, Trillram was assaulting the real Slaine; the unmasked person Slaine was when he was not selling his body to strangers.

Right after Trillram was done, Slaine took a deep breath of relief that it was over. He felt his stiff body relax against the floor and heard Trillram rustle with the clothing while a sticky feeling dribbled down between his legs from where Trillram had released his load.

“Turn around. Give me your arm,” he then heard a soothing voice say. It seemed like Trillram had relaxed as well and the man’s previous anger had disappeared.

Slaine clumsily fixed his jeans without bothering to clean up between his legs, and then rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling where the paint had begun to chip off. Trillram went into the living room and then came back with a candle, sat down next to Slaine and pulled up his right sleeve. Slaine watched the man tie a tourniquet around his wounded upper arm, and then heard him open the plastic bag containing the purple gold.

The bag Trillram opened contained a syringe and needle with a clear purple liquid inside, and Slaine felt himself grow anticipating as he watched it; the biological reward system was lighting up like fireworks during New Year’s Eve in his brain.

Trillram lowered the needle to the enlarged artery on Slaine’s slender arm, pushed it against the skin, and then guided the needle in.

Within seconds, a peaceful feeling spread in Slaine’s mind; everything came to a halt for a short moment. He closed his eyes and sighed from satisfaction. Finally, he got to breathe properly and get rid of all the unpleasant pain and thoughts haunting his mind. Finally, he had peace and quiet for about half an hour.

Trillram pulled out the needle with great care. Slaine could almost describe Trillram’s practiced way of handling a syringe and needle as beautiful, was it not for the substance the man injected. The injection was clean and not painful in the slightest. He always had a gentle touch when injecting Slaine with the drug, as if it was his way to make love, and it was a comforting moment in their broken lives each time Trillram showed Slaine that kind of consideration and affection.

‘ _How warped…_ ’ Slaine thought and chuckled absentmindedly while relief poured back into his exhausted body.

Slowly and carefully he got up from the floor and, by the time Trillram had disappeared into the living room again without saying a word, the blond felt calm and happy, and the pain from his wounds dissipated.

He stopped at the door to his room to throw his coat into the messy chamber, which he had not bothered to clean for several months, and then turned around and headed for the kitchen. Slaine remembered he had to eat and should do it now before the relieving and comforting effect of Aldnoah would wear off. Once that happened, he would lose his appetite entirely and probably go to bed with a growling stomach.

To his dismay, his part of the fridge was empty. The entire compartment was bare except for a banana that lay in Trillram’s vegetable drawer. That was when he remembered he had been on his way to buy food with the little money he remembered he had in his pockets after not eating properly for several days, before he had been attacked by Trillram. He could not remember the attack itself, but he was sure Trillram had been the one to jump him.

As he pushed his hands into the jeans pockets, he found them empty.

With a heavy sigh, he closed the fridge door and dragged his feet to the living room where Trillram was sitting on the filthy and worn couch with dried spots from all kinds of fluids, leaning his head against the backrest with closed eyes and an awkward smile on his lips – high on Aldnoah as well.

The blond felt for some company no matter how unproductive it was and slumped down next to Trillram and leaned his tired body against the backrest in a similar manner like his companion. The worn springs in the couch cried, protesting against his weight, but the whining was replaced with the distant sirens from police cars and people yelling and laughing on the street outside. It was just as cliché as in the movies.

“I’ve been dead for seven years…” Trillram suddenly mumbled, and Slaine threw a glance at him. “You’ve been dead for how long? Five?”

“Yeah… I was declared dead the same day they found my dad’s burnt corpse after he was set on fire by one of Cruhteo’s goons,” Slaine mumbled with closed eyes.

“On what grounds?” his roommate asked.

“I’ve told you before: I was murdered by dad,” Slaine answered. “The corpse was a body double; the burnt body of an innocent kid or something. I think he was the son to someone who couldn’t pay their debt to Cruhteo, and was murdered as punishment. It was an easy way to dispose of his corpse, I guess.” The blond took a deep breath and continued: “By the way…”

“Hm?”

“Where’s my money?”

He heard Trillram raise his head, probably to look at him with agitation from being accused for stealing.

“What’cha talking about?” the young man grunted with slurred words. “Lemme enjoy my ride of the high first before you start bitching about something…”

So Trillram did not know about the money. He never lied when he was high and only exaggerated when sober. It was one of the few qualities the blond actually appreciated in him since he knew he could trust Trillram with nearly every answer to each question the blond asked. Of course, the dark-haired man embellished the truths and exaggerated at times, but he could be trusted nonetheless.

Slaine understood looters had passed by to search through his pockets as he had been lying unconscious in the alley, and he would never get that money back. It meant he needed another solution for his hunger.

“What did you do with the money you got from selling me?” he then asked, and Trillram sighed heavily. “Share some of it, will you? I did the hard part of earning those; my body aches.”

The blond looked up at the slightly older man and watched him pull his emaciated fingers through his dark hair that had lost its styled bowl-cut shape a long time ago; it was straggly after not being cut and dirty since the electricity and warm water were turned off after they had had trouble paying the money to Cruhteo, who in turn paid their bills. It looked just like Slaine’s overgrown hair. Neither of them had showered for days since the coldness of the water had been biting at their skin like angry rats trying to chew through it each time they had tried to wash themselves.

“I paid my week’s debt to Cruhteo,” Trillram said. “And I paid the money for our electricity and water. We should have heat and warm water by tomorrow, hopefully.”

Trillram had been noble with the money he had gotten from an immoral act of selling a drugged Slaine to foreigners. It surprised Slaine somewhat, but he guessed their mutually desperate situation made Trillram prioritize their bills rather than buying more drugs; he had even refrained from buying food for himself in order to pay Cruhteo the money he demanded to keep their electricity going. Winter was arriving after all; their rundown apartment had already begun to grow cold during the nights.

Slaine smiled weakly.

“That’s good, I guess,” he murmured and sighed. “Thanks for not spending it on drugs.”

Trillram scoffed and shook his head.

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” he snarled. “I didn’t do it for you; I wanna shower and not get sick again.”

“Sure…” Slaine answered with a smile from knowing Trillram looked after both of them even though he refused to admit it.

Despite their differences and warped relationship as roommates worrying about how to live another day, they still tried to help each other even if it was through questionable means at times such as this. They had lived under these kind of conditions for so long that it mattered not in what ways they brought in the money, since neither of them had any self-value; Slaine sold himself due to his Caucasian looks while Trillram robbed and stole whatever he could to make shady business with dangerous people.

“Say, do you want to share that banana in the fridge?” the blond then asked quietly.

“It’s mine,” the other grumbled and looked at the blond with a grumpy and drugged glare. “Go get your own food.”

Slaine frowned and pressed his lips together from frustration before he argued back:

“I was on my way to do just that before you jumped me and I lost the money I was to buy dinner with. Take some responsibility and share some of what you have.”

Trillram scoffed.

“I gave you a high.”

“As payment for fucking me on our doorstep,” the blond reminded him.

Despite their ridiculous argument, Slaine did not feel the need to get agitated due to the drug calming him down and making everything seem carefree around him. Trillram’s highs were sometimes energetic and at other times he was calm and childishly grumpy, like now.

Trillram ruffled his own hair before he sighed annoyed:

“Fine! I guess I’m hungry anyway.” Then his hands slumped down into his lap, and he murmured: “But only if you keep me warm when I go to sleep and give me a blowjob.”

Slaine snorted and got up from the couch to get the banana from the fridge. His body was trembling from hunger, but the drug numbed the void in his stomach.

“No way. I can keep you warm but I won’t suck you off. You’ve already had your fun with me for today,” he argued back and disappeared into the kitchen to eagerly take the only food they had at home. He returned to the couch and let his body fall against it again, making the springs cry a second time.

“Come on,” Trillram whined and watched Slaine peel the banana. “You’re way better at it than the girls I’ve fucked.”

Slaine snickered quietly.

“You get girls to have sex with you? That’s a first. Are you sure it’s not called rape what do you to them?”

“Shut your piehole, idiot! Of course I get girls!” Trillram instantly attacked to protect his manly pride, but went quiet as he watched Slaine take the banana deep into his throat to tease him of what he was missing. The dark-haired man licked his lips. “Damn it…!”

After Slaine pulled the banana out, he chewed his half off and then gave the rest to Trillram, who grumpily gobbled it up.

“Tell you what,” Slaine said and leaned his head back against the backrest of the couch and looked up at the ceiling again. “If you pay me like my clients do, I will suck you deep enough to bury my nose in your pubic hair for as long as your money lasts. If you clean it first, I might give you ten extra minutes for free. How about it?”

Trillram released an exacerbated sigh and leaned his head back as well to stare up at their crackled ceiling.

“As if I can afford that,” he mumbled. “I couldn’t even afford keeping my soul as mine. How am I supposed to be able to buy your services? Give me a break.”

“So you admit my services is that good?” the blond chuckled and felt Trillram smack his arm from annoyance. “Ow…!”

“Just shut up and keep me warm throughout the night. That’s all,” the other grumbled and got up from the couch.

He had marked how far his patience reached and warned Slaine about stepping over the invisible line, which made the blond give in to his demand and followed Trillram to his bedroom after cleaning his wounds with cold water. They lay down on the dirty futon Trillram owned – still dressed in their clothes – and curled up together to stay warm; the dark-haired young man lay behind Slaine and put an arm around his waist to hug him close, before he took a deep breath to relax.

“Are ya seeing Cruhteo tomorrow?” Trillram asked quietly.

“Yeah…” Slaine sighed with his cheek resting against the pillow. “I have to pay my debt, too.”

“Lucky…” the other complained. Slaine could feel Trillram’s cold nose poke the back of his neck. “I want to have free drugs and food, too…”

“It’s not free,” the blond corrected him and closed his eyes to get some sleep now that the effects of Aldnoah were wearing off.

“Right, right,” the older of the two grumbled. “You just have to fuck him and then you get a full course meal and four syringes of Aldnoah. I wish I could do that too, but I don’t look like you do. Besides, he’s really into you.”

Slaine chuckled as he tried to contain his laughter.

“Are you saying I look better than you?” he asked, but instantly regretted it as Trillram’s hand was shoved into his jeans and grabbed his groin a little too hard. “Agh!”

“Careful,” Trillram warned him with a poisonous hiss right next Slaine’s ear. It was not an empty threat this time: “Or I’ll rape the shit out of you just because I can, without pay.”

“I’m sorry,” Slaine gasped and tried to pull Trillram’s hand out of his jeans. “I was just teasing you. Mmph!”

Perhaps Slaine was a little too confident after a high of Aldnoah since he always managed to anger Trillram like this, he thought as Trillram fell asleep with his hand inside Slaine’s jeans. The palm of his hand felt warm against the other’s crotch and it sent a shiver down Slaine’s spine that made him curl his toes from how comforting such an outrageous thing could feel. The blond took a deep breath before he relaxed his body as well, and fell asleep while feeling warm and paradoxically safe in Trillram’s destructive arms.

∞∞

Once noon came, he got up from bed with a body trembling from hunger. Trillram was still asleep; sleeping so silently he resembled a corpse with his inaudible breaths and eerie stillness.

Slaine felt like he had a bottomless pit in his stomach that needed to be filled. He tried to fill it with water mixed with salt and sugar while feeling out of breath, and struggled to ignore the aching bones. When he checked his wounds, he saw they were becoming infected.

He sighed annoyed and decided to try the shower with the hopes of the warm water being turned on, and, to his joy, he was allowed to wash himself in hot water and properly clean himself. After that, he dressed in his nicest clothes and packed his brown canvas backpack with all the money he had, gritted his teeth nervously and ventured out onto the street that now bathed in daylight.

A bus ride later, he stood before a tall building with seventy-one floors according to the elevator display he always stared at on his way to the top. This day, he did the same thing he always did each Wednesday: He walked inside the busy office building and told the receptionist he was here to see the big boss, and got the card that would take him to the top floor once he held it in front of a panel in the elevator.

Said and done. He stepped out of the elevator into an empty hall. Two guards stood at the door at the end of the corridor much like watchdogs glaring at him, and the blond stepped fearlessly up to them. They recognized him immediately and one of them opened the door and showed him inside the apartment.

“The boy is here, sir,” the guard announced from next to Slaine.

‘ _A boy?_ ’ Slaine thought bitterly. He was nineteen years old and not a child.

And a dark voice answered from another room:

“Have him take a shower and check the money he has with him.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard answered and held out his hand to Slaine and waited for him to give him his backpack.

Slaine knew he had to do as he was told even if he had already taken a shower half an hour earlier. He sighed and gave the guard his backpack, and followed him into the familiar shower he used once a week when he paid his father’s debt to the money-hungry shark controlling his life.

Just like he did every time he made this visit, he stepped out of the shower with only a towel around him. It was big enough to envelop his entire torso and thighs, and he held it tightly closed and followed the guard who seemed to have finished calculating the money. He showed the young man into a bedroom and left him there, closing the door behind him.

“You’re three-thousand yen short this week,” a dark voice said from the balcony, and Slaine felt his body grow cold.

A tall man, dressed in a fine white shirt and dark brown trousers stood on the balcony while taking a smoke. He stood in ridiculously polished black shoes and his golden hair waved slowly in the soft winter wind.

“N-no, I’m sure I had it all this time,” Slaine said nervously and stepped up to the balcony door and looked at the man’s broad back. He hugged the towel closer to protect him from the wind. “I swear I got it up to eighty-thousand even this week.”

“Empty excuses, Slaine,” the man said and turned around to look at the blond, who took a step back from meeting the harsh glare in the other’s piercing blue eyes. “Do I need to break you in again to remind you of how to haul in the money?”

Slaine held his breath and felt his already weak body tremble from fear as well. He shook his head after a while and said quietly:

“I-I’ll get out onto t-the street immediately, and b-bring you three-thousand yen w-within an hour…”

The red room. Slaine feared it more than anything. Five years ago, when his father had committed suicide, Slaine had been kidnapped from next to his father’s corpse and brought into a small and blood-red room, still crying from shock from finding his father dead after coming home from school. There, he had been told by the same man standing before him now that his father had destroyed a large portion of the drug he had been developing for a worth of three-hundred-million yen. Since Slaine had been the only member of the Troyard family left, the man had told him he would pay it back by working hard, or else he would have his organs sold on the black market. The child had agreed from fear for his life and, once the man had left the room, another stranger had stepped in.

Slaine had been locked up in the blood-red room with strangers coming in to toy with him for so long he had fallen into some kind of psychotic episode, believing in unbelievable things that explained the womb-like room and scary shadows that hurt him. The windowless redness and the strangers had become surreal, and he had screamed and cried, fought and struggled so hard he had been restrained and drugged with his father’s drug – the drug called Aldnoah. He had been hooked after just a couple of hits, and, once he had been allowed out of the room, it had taken months for him to emotionally recover to the point where he was somewhat functional as a human being. Although he had recovered a lot since then, he knew he would never recover completely.

“I’m already lenient with you, Slaine, because you are the son of Dr. Troyard and an acquaintance to Miss Allusia, but that doesn’t mean you are allowed to become lazy,” the man said and stepped into the room and closed the balcony door.

“I’ll do anything! F-forgive me, Cruhteo! I won’t make this mistake again!” Slaine said desperately and took a step back. “I’ll give you three-thousand yen before this day is over! I’m so sorry! I’m not lazy and I don’t need a reminder on how to work! I’m really trying!”

“Drop the towel,” Cruhteo commanded curtly instead, ignoring the terrified young man’s pleading promise, and stared at Slaine without reacting to anything the blond said. Slaine stared at him for a short moment before obeying with a trembling body. Cruhteo’s eyes narrowed at seeing the cuts on his commodity. “Where are those wounds from?”

“S-some punks… They jumped me and…” Slaine tried to lie to protect Trillram, but he knew he was bad at it – especially in a frightened state like this. “I-it doesn’t matter. I already have scars anyway.”

“And who were they?” the man asked with a hiss. His glare made Slaine feel overpowered by nervousness.

“S-sir,” the blond stammered. “I don’t know.”

Cruhteo’s eyes narrowed even more, piercing the blond who held his breath. Slaine felt like he was put on display in front of him; the man eyed him up and down, resting his eyes on whatever caught his interest. For a moment, Slaine thought he found the pitiful sight of the undernourished and wounded young man pleasant.

“You are lying,” his overbearing demon said after glaring at the blond for a while. “Who is responsible for all this?”

Cruhteo was strangely possessive of the blond and Slaine knew this. It should have not come as a surprise Cruhteo wanted to know who had tortured his commodity, but he was such a fearful man he could suffocate all emotions in a room with just a single look, and that look was drilling itself into the shivering blond.

As Slaine did not answer, persistently protecting his roommate, Cruhteo seemed to give up interrogating Slaine and sat down on the edge of the bed and cocked his head back to order Slaine closer.

“Forget it. Service me,” he demanded, and the blond took a deep breath and moved closer before getting down on his knees between the man’s legs and opened Cruhteo’s trousers to free his cock from the fabric. It was still soft. “I know you’re starving, but I won’t let you eat just yet. You will swallow each load I empty into your mouth for as long as I see fit, as punishment for not bringing in the right amount of cash.”

Slaine closed his eyes and silently prayed Cruhteo’s body would give up before Slaine’s stomach did, and he did as ordered and took the man’s flesh into his mouth.

Already, he felt sick. His stomach was so sensitive even the smell of a cock made him nauseous. He was supposed to be good at this – and he knew he was – but he gagged each time he took Cruhteo’s hardening meat deep into his throat.

Tears sprung to his eyes and his body began trembling from nausea.

“I c-can’t…” he whispered as he had to pull the cock out of his throat and take a breath to calm his sickness, but a ruthless slap silenced him.

“I didn’t tell you to stop, did I?” the man asked with a warning hiss, and Slaine sucked in a breath and continued with his services.

Immediately when he swallowed Cruhteo’s first load, he vomited. His stomach was so sensitive from not being properly fed for days that it refused the bodily fluids forced into it. Despite that, he managed to keep his protests to himself throughout the rest of the day – enduring everything Cruhteo did – in order to save his own skin.

Once evening fell, Cruhteo decided to let Slaine go. The blond stood in the elevator with his backpack filled with food and four doses of Aldnoah. The cruel man had allowed Slaine to eat dinner before he left, which made him feel much better.

“ _You will pay me eighty-three-thousand next week, to cover for the shortage this week. If you repeat this mistake, I will break you in again_ ,” Cruhteo had said right before Slaine had left.

When he shoved his hands into his coat pockets to protect them from the cold outside, he felt a small lump of paper in the bottom of the pocket and a tired realization hit him. When he took the contents of the pocket out, he realized it was the missing three-thousand yen and one-thousand extra that he had saved yesterday to buy food. Now he remembered he had put yesterday’s earnings in his coat pocket, not in his jeans. A shaky breath was his only reaction, and he shoved the money back into his pocket and went outside.

“Isn’t it a little late for kids to roam the streets?” he heard a scruffy male voice say the moment he stepped out through the door. He recognized that voice and continued walking determinedly, putting up the usual act whenever this man was close by. He had been following the blond for a couple of months now. “Quite rude, as always I see, still not introducing yourself.”

“Look who’s talking. I believe the nurses at the retirement home are getting worried. You should head back,” Slaine answered without stopping.

Steps began following him and a hint of cigarette smoke reached his nostrils.

“Ouch, how sassy. That’s harsh,” the man chuckled with smoke spewing out from between his dry lips. “Your mommy taught you good, I guess, for not speaking to strangers, but it’s difficult to make friends if you never introduce yourself to anyone.”

“Befriending a cop isn’t on my bucket list, Officer Marito. Stop pestering me,” the blond barked and continued walking toward the bus stop.

“I guess that could be a little difficult for a criminal,” Marito answered amused. “Been up there whoring yourself to the boss again? Did you give his dick a nice polish and let him have a good pounding?” the man then chuckled. When the blond held his answer, Marito continued: "Any fake visas to show me this time?”

Slaine gritted his teeth.

“What, you’re interested?” he snarled. “Sorry but if you want a warm hole to stick your dick in, go to the nearest brothel. You should know where they are. Besides, my visa is legit so you can’t take me in for being an illegal immigrant.”

Marito laughed. He was well aware of Slaine lying about his visa, but had no proof of that because both of them knew it was a well-made fake.

“As stingy as always,” he said humored. “Why find a brothel when I have a whore right in front of me?” Slaine forced his steps forward, refusing to let the cop aggravate his foul mood that clung to him after Cruhteo’s punishment. “I know what you’re doing, punk. I can see it in your eyes.”

“That’s not enough to take me in for prostitution, officer,” the young man answered and stopped to wait for the bus at the bus stop.

He had to take another bus and then change to another in order to shake the man off him.

“Perhaps,” Marito said and walked up next to him and leaned against the streetlight. “Want a smoke?” When Slaine kept silent and ignored his offer, Marito continued: “Well, I roamed around in the red-light district a couple of nights ago and heard this funny noise from an alley. Who do you think I saw fucking a woman?”

“Could have been your own son for all I care,” Slaine grumbled and saw a muscle twitch in the officer’s face.

“It was you,” Marito continued, this time with frustration. “However, the chick must have paid you before the fucking, since I didn’t see any money. Too bad, huh? I can’t take you in because of a little detail like that. You didn’t use any protection either. Have any unknown kids or an STD somewhere in a forgotten pocket?”

Slaine sighed and was glad to finally hear the bus coming.

“Who knows how many kinds I have – if I have any? It’s the women’s choice if they want to use a condom or not; some get a kick from playing with fire and I simply scratch their itch. Besides, the kids are probably happier without their miserable dad around,” he said and took out his bus card. “About an STD, how about I blow a load in your ass and then wait to see if you get sick?”

“Is that how you test yourself; on your clients?” the officer asked, and the blond stepped onto the bus when it opened its door, and turned around to answer Marito with a grin:

“What clients?”

“You little-!” Marito exclaimed before the doors closed. Slaine showed his bus card to the machine and then sat down next to a window to wave to the angered officer, who shouted loud enough Slaine heard him through the window: “Deny it all you want. You’ll get caught one day, punk! I’ll get you before you’ve done too much harm! One day I’ll catch you without your fake visa, right in the act!”

‘ _Shut up…_ ’ the blond thought exhaustedly; he hated the glaring man.

When the bus drove off, Slaine slumped against his seat and took a deep breath. Today had been difficult. Cruhteo had kept him chained to the bed all day and his body was sore and numb at the same time. He could not wait to get back home.

First, he would hand the drugs over to Trillram and share some of his food with him, since he had looked so weak this morning; he could not have him die on him. Then he would disappear into his room and go to sleep after enjoying a hit of Aldnoah.

He opened the door into the dark apartment like usual and announced his return, but – this time – no familiar voice answered. A sweet smell drifted in the air, and Slaine got a bad feeling.

“Trillram?” he asked and turned the lights on in the hallway, and stepped deeper into the apartment. “I brought some food. You want some?” When no one answered, Slaine began to fear the worst. Had Trillram overdosed or starved to death? “Trillram?”

He hurried to the door to Trillram’s room and opened it to look inside. The darkness engulfed the room entirely and Slaine turned the lights on. The moment he saw what the room contained, Slaine staggered back from panic until he fell backwards onto the floor and stared at the massacre in the room.

Trillram had been murdered. He had not even gotten the chance to get up from bed before someone had shot him. He still had the duvet over him he and Slaine had huddled beneath this morning, but it was soaked in blood. It was punctured by several bullet holes and a puddle of blood had spread around the mattress. The side of his skull had blown off after someone had shot him in the head and the splattered blood and brain mass stained the pillow and wall next to him.

Slaine was struck by such panic he hurried back up on his feet and dashed out through the door and back onto the streets. He knew Trillram’s profession was much more dangerous than Slaine’s, but this still came as a horrific surprise.

The underworld was ruthless and walking through it was like dancing on a minefield.

Trillram and Slaine had not had a choice but to live in the shadows, since they had both been kidnapped as kids to be put to work under Cruhteo’s supervision. The man watched over their entire lives and had hooked them up with Aldnoah to control them and motivate them to work and bring in the money. Working under Cruhteo’s hidden cartel gave Slaine and Trillram protection, but not all groups and cartels feared the name. The only reason Slaine could come up with as to why Trillram had been murdered was that Trillram must have stolen from the wrong person.

‘ _What do I do?_ ’ he thought and continued running aimlessly. ‘ _I can’t go back there in case they come back_.’

He rounded a corner and dove into the darkness of an alley. He pushed his back up against the concrete wall and tried to catch his breath. Once again, nausea welled up in his throat when the image of the bloody Trillram floated into his erratic mind, and he vomited out the entire dinner he had eaten just a couple of hours earlier.

He had never seen such a bloodbath before despite living in the underworld from the moment his father was hired by Rayregalia Vers Rayvers to develop the Aldnoah drug when Slaine had been eleven years old. His father had not known what his work would result in at the time when they moved to Japan, and had been happy to assist a renowned drug company with creating a new drug.

Back then, Slaine had been an innocent boy who had gotten to know the granddaughter of the Vers Pharmaceuticals’ CEO and played with her whenever their guardians were having a meeting or spoke business and results of the projects his father had been involved in. He and Asseylum had been brought up in the corridors and rooms of Vers Pharmaceuticals’ buildings and labs, played in the conference rooms, rolled down the hallways on desk chairs and drawn on the whiteboards with colorful pens. They had been preciously surviving in their fantasy world together in grown-up environments, unknowing of what horrific things their guardians were up to. It had been a time of innocence – something Slaine had quickly learned did not last forever.

Once Slaine’s father had died and Cruhteo had presented to Slaine his new life, he had kept on seeing Asseylum now and then in a coffee shop, but even that had slowly begun to disappear as Asseylum had become busy with school. Now, she lived abroad, probably living a comfortable life with a lover, soon to be married and getting her own family, and here Slaine was, staggering through blood and mud, taking drugs in order to sell his body to strangers so that he could pay a debt that was not his, with a friend lying murdered in the bed back home.

‘ _How could it all have come down to this?_ ’ he wondered and released a whimper. ‘ _Trillram…_ ’

It was unbelievable the young man was murdered. It had not quite sunken in yet, and Slaine got a delusional feeling his friend would be all right if he returned to the apartment. It was so surreal it could not be true. His one and only companion was lying in a puddle of blood in their apartment where they had lived for five years, helping each other to drag their feet and move forward through the hell they have been living in. Now, Trillram had been freed, leaving Slaine alone.

Tears sprung out of his eyes and wetted his cheeks. He hid his face against his knees after slumping down against the wall, and began crying, grieving for his lost friend and his own miserable life. Fear to call Cruhteo and tell him about what had happened kept him from moving. It was as if Slaine had lost his motivation to do anything.

‘ _I hate this! I hate this so much!_ ’ he thought and sniveled. ‘ _I want to die, too_.’

He had managed to pay back seventeen-million yen during his career in the underworld, and had so much more left; he would die long before he had reached the sum of three-hundred-million yen. On top of that, no one knew he was suffering since he was not alive. The Slaine Troyard he was supposed to be was dead, which technically meant he was not suffering at all; no one knew he existed, and therefore no one knew he needed help.

‘ _I can’t do this…_ ’ he thought and took a deep breath and leaned his head back to look up at the sky between the rooftops of the buildings around him. It was a clear night sky with carefree stars twinkling back at him. ‘ _I don’t have to do this_ ,’ he then concluded.

He rummaged around in his backpack and found the four syringes with Aldnoah Cruhteo had given him. If he took them all he would certainly take a lethal dose, and that was what he did, much less gracefully than the way Trillram used to do it.

To prevent or stall anyone from finding his corpse, he decided to walk to the bridge and throw his useless body into the river flowing beneath it once he felt weak enough.

The world became hazy quite quickly. He felt sick and could not focus on anything, and his emotions began fading and so did everything else. The fuzzy world around him danced before his eyes, and the shadows around him became deeper. He could barely form a coherent thought, but he managed to push his heavy body up from the cold ground and drag his staggering legs toward the bridge.

Somehow – he did not remember how – he managed to get to the bridge. He was severely out of breath, as if his lungs protested and had decided not to function anymore. Was this his cue?, he wondered, and in his intoxicated state decided it was so.

“Hey!” he heard a woman yell somewhere when he clumsily climbed over the railing. “Stop! What are you doing?!”

‘ _Can it…_ ’ Slaine thought hazily and turned around to look at the water beneath the bridge.

His sight was already bad enough he could not see anything clearly below. It was like standing on the edge of a dark abyss; the river looked like a bottomless hole.

‘ _Wait… What am I doing here?_ ’

“That’s dangerous! Hey!” the woman kept on yelling, and someone ran toward him. “Come back here!”

“Try to catch him, sis. I’ll go down to the shore if he falls while calling for help,” a young man’s voice said.

Someone grabbed him by his arm and tried to hold him back, but Slaine pulled himself free out of reflex after so many strangers had tried to drag him away every day, and, in the process, lost his grip of the railing. He felt his body float in midair and his breathing stopped.

‘ _Oh…_ ’ he thought and managed to get a blurry look of the woman who had tried to save him before he closed his eyes. ‘ _I slipped_.’

He crashed into the ice cold water, and that was when his memory was knocked into splinters. Someone screamed somewhere. Another yelled something. Hands grabbed and pulled at him and his ribcage felt like it was crushed over and over again.

Then, everything disappeared.

∞∞

When he woke up, he woke up into a strange room with white walls and machines beeping around him and the bed. He had no memory of what had happened or where he was, nor could he understand what was going on except for feeling a horrible pain over his chest. It took a while for him to collect his mind enough to take a look around and begin thinking, but he was still clueless no matter for how long he lay on the bed. It was as if he could not understand anything nor put two and two together to figure out where he was.

Soon, the door opened and a young man dressed in softly green clothes came in. He stopped in the doorway and stared at the blond with shocked eyes, before hurrying out of the room to yell something about a patient being awake. Within moments, a man with a white coat and others with green clothes came rushing in, and they began touching him and speaking to him.

‘ _Stop…_ ’ Slaine thought weakly and felt distressed. He feared they were going to hurt him since he understood nothing of what they said. ‘ _Don’t touch me. I’m tired of that shit_.’

It was a confusing moment. They were ripping plastic packages to shreds and danced around with metal objects in their hands that they poked him with, made bright orbs dance before his eyes and attacked his ears with words that meant nonsense to him. They even had the audacity to wave his weak limbs around as if mocking him for not being able to move them himself; lifting them up and flapping his hands around.

Once this ridiculous charade ended, he was left alone in the room for a while and was allowed to relax and pull his thoughts out of the mud in his brain. Nothing of what had happened to him before waking up in this unknown room really came to mind, and he took a deep breath and closed his eyes again and fell asleep.

The second time he woke up, he managed to understand the sight of a scruffy looking middle-aged man who was sitting next to him, reading a newspaper. The air around him smelled of cigarettes, and Slaine finally recognized him.

“Marito,” he said weakly, and the man looked up at him and got a wide grin on his lips.

“There we go, kid. Welcome back,” he said satisfied. “You were out cold for days.”

“Out cold…?” Slaine mumbled and felt his head ache. “Where am I?”

“In the hospital of course,” the man answered and grunted as Slaine asked him why. “You tried to kill yourself,” he continued and frowned. “You don’t remember?”

“No…” Slaine mumbled and took a deep breath and sat up.

“Well, the doctor said you had taken a lethal dose of Aldnoah, and your suicide attempt actually saved you. Quite ironic, isn’t it?” he asked and chuckled. The blond stared at him confused. “The drug shut your respiratory system down, but the sudden shock from the cold water jumpstarted it into a functional state. One of my colleagues was on patrol that night and found you. You got lucky.”

“ _That’s dangerous! Hey!_ ” echoed in his memory. “ _Come back here!_ ”

“I … see,” the blond sighed tiredly. “What will happen now?”

Marito chuckled satisfied and was about to open his mouth to answer him when a door swung open into the room and a woman with long black hair stormed in with a young man with tousled brown hair behind her. The woman wore a police uniform while the young man trailing behind her wore neat pants and a brown coat and scarf.

“What did you think you were doing, huh?!” the woman exclaimed and glared at Slaine with a strict stare. The blond stared at her with utter shock. “You think you can go and off yourself like that? Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Yuki,” the young brunet said and pulled her back with a strong hand around her belt. “Not so aggressively. He has just woken up.”

“You think I’ll let him get away from subjecting me to something traumatizing like that?!” she shrieked and glared at the young man looking back at her with an emotionless expression.

Suddenly, at hearing her voice, the memories came flooding back to him of what had happened that night when he had lost his consciousness. Trillram was dead and the blond had decided to take his own life since he had found no reason to carry on alone.

‘ _I have to contact Cruhteo_ ,’ he thought and felt stressed out for having two cops in the hospital room where he was kept. ‘ _I have to escape from here!_ ’

Then his thoughts halted again and he wondered why he had to escape and call Cruhteo. Would jail not be much more comfortable than the streets where he had to whore himself to strangers?

‘ _But what if Cruhteo has people inside the prison that will shank me the moment they get the chance?_ ’ he then thought and felt so confused he felt his distress grow. ‘ _Am I in too deep?_ ’

“Sit down and stop whining,” Marito ordered the woman who seemed to go by the name Yuki. When she obeyed with a grumpy pout on her lips, Marito turned to Slaine again and asked: “Now that you’re in a hospital, don’t you think you should introduce yourself so the doctors can find your medical record?”

Slaine stared at him for a long time, unable to come to a conclusion of what to answer him. He wanted to tell him. He wanted the officers to know he was a victim in all this – that he had been forced to pay a debt he had no responsibility for. Even if he had been declared dead five years ago, perhaps he was allowed to get his identity back? Then again, if he did tell them, he risked going to jail and be found by Cruhteo. He was sure the man had sent out people to look for him.

‘ _Or will Cruhteo believe I’ve been abducted?_ ’ he wondered and painfully thought of Trillram lying dead in their apartment. ‘ _If he has found Trillram, maybe he thinks those who murdered him have abducted me, since I’ve disappeared as well?_ ’

“You should give us your name so we can help you,” the brown-haired young man suddenly said with a comfortable voice, looking at Slaine with expressionless eyes.

“Help him?” Marito asked and raised his eyebrows, as though the brunet had told a bad joke. “Oh no, kid. This guy will be prosecuted for prostitution and drug possession as well as illegal immigration. I’ve been on his ass for several months now. The punk works for that Cruhteo, who has suspicious ties to the Vers Pharmaceuticals.”

“N-no,” Slaine mumbled, and the officers went silent and stared at him. “If I go to jail, I’ll get murdered…”

“What? That’s ridiculous. The jails are really safe,” the officer called Yuki said.

Slaine shook his head.

“No. My boss might have people in there. Don’t you know how the mafia operates?” the blond asked and looked up at the three. “Why do you think inmates murder each other? It’s sometimes because they are receiving such orders from the outside.”

Marito scoffed:

“Why would there be a need to murder you? You’re just a whore, aren’t you?”

No. Slaine was more than that to Cruhteo and the Vers Pharmaceuticals, and the officer’s comment stung uncomfortably. Slaine was a great source of information due to his father’s work, and if it got known he was in contact with the police, Cruhteo would surely send out people to either kidnap him or murder him to shush him. However, if Slaine revealed this now, the cops would figure out who he was.

Instead, Slaine hung his head and felt like crying from having to make this impossible decision. He had been brainwashed into believing his life was in danger if he tried to crawl out of the underworld, and he was terrified of not knowing what was less dangerous; to escape back to Cruhteo’s side to continue prostituting or letting the cops know everything about him.

He felt safe with what was familiar to him despite it probably not being good for him. These thoughts were something he recognized from the verbalized thoughts of others in a similar situation. He understood he had become one of them, believing everything outside his destructive life was more dangerous than the destructive life itself.

“Leave us for a little while,” the brown-haired man suddenly said, and Yuki and Marito stared at him with shock. “I need to speak with this man alone.”

“But you’re not a police officer, Nao!” Yuki blurted and stood up, but the young man looked determined.

“Leave us. It’s fine,” the other said.

Marito sighed heavily and decided to give the brunet a chance to wiggle whatever he could out of the blond and convinced Yuki to follow him out of the room. Slaine figured the old man knew Slaine well enough from trailing him to know the blond was not dangerous, believing it safe to leave this young man alone with him.

The brunet looked at Slaine for a while once they were left alone, studying his exhausted frame carefully before he sat down on the chair where Marito had been sitting.

“How do you feel?” the brunet asked, and Slaine blinked from the surprisingly gentle voice and question.

“Uh… N-not too good,” he answered honestly, too tired and confused to put on the sassy mask he usually had around people, except with Trillram and Cruhteo.

“Are you hungry? I can get you something from the cafeteria,” the young man continued, and the blond blinked again.

“N-no thank you…” he mumbled back, unable to understand why the other was so considerate.

“I was out to meet up with my sis that evening after she had begun her shift, because she forgot her lunch box at home,” the young man began to explain with a monotone voice. “We saw you stagger to the bridge and climb over the railing. She ran up to you to grab you, and I hurried to the riverbank below in case you would fall, and you did. I jumped in after you and pulled you up, and my sis gave you CPR before the ambulance came. Your chest is probably hurting from that,” the brunet continued, still without much emotion in his voice. His voice was really nice to listen to, though; it was soft and gentle despite its monotone character. “I thought you wanted to know, since I doubt Marito gave you any background to why you’re here.”

“Uh-huh…” was the only thing Slaine could say as his memory was set to spin like a disk in a computer searching for data.

Now that he thought about it, he could remember someone yelling to him he was doing something dangerous, and he could remember someone saying something about calling for help and catching Slaine if he fell. He could suddenly also remember he had forgotten his wish for death once he had stood on the wrong side of the railing on the bridge; he had thought he had slipped when falling, without realizing what had been going on.

Slaine gritted his teeth. It was difficult to remember, since it clearly proved to him he had no true wish to die. It had been an impulse and nothing else. How foolish of him. If he wished to live, what decision was the best for him to make in order to get a chance to survive? Should he tell the cops everything, or should he try to escape?

“By the way,” the brunet said. “My name’s Inaho. Kaizuka Inaho. Nice meeting you.”

Slaine nodded without answering and lowered his eyes. Perhaps he should try to accept their help? He would die anyway, would he not? At least he should try to get his own life back and risk dying in the process instead of cowering like a beaten dog in a gutter somewhere. He was tired of the life he had led thus far. It was too difficult for him, especially now that Trillram was gone.

“I’m…” he said and went silent to take a deep breath and gather courage to test these unknown waters. “I’m not that kind of a prostitute like Marito says…”

Inaho nodded as if expecting to hear something like that.

“I think you’re a sex trafficking victim,” he said bluntly, and Slaine blinked. “I don’t think someone who’s a prostitute under a drug cartel is a prostitute willingly.”

“H-how did you know?” Slaine asked breathlessly and stared at the brunet.

“The police are checking up the Vers Pharmaceuticals for illegal activity. They have managed to trace the Aldnoah drug to one of their labs,” the brunet said. “Since Marito said you work as a prostitute for Cruhteo, who is believed to distribute the drug and who probably works for that pharmaceutical company, I think you’re just caught up in all this as a victim and not as a criminal.”

Slaine had never believed that anyone would look at him that way. He had always been met with contempt for selling his body and taking drugs. Even his own clients thought he did it because he needed the money to buy drugs and treated him accordingly. That was not the entire truth, nor was it the main truth for that matter.

This brown-haired young man had pointed out something no one else had wanted or bothered to see or recognize, and it overwhelmed the blond to finally hear words that told him it was not his fault for things to have become like this. It made him feel free, somehow, to finally be given a truthful description to his situation by someone else.

“T-thank you…!” Slaine said with a whimpering gasp and began crying from a strange sensation of relief. “Thank you.”

“If you decide to tell my sis and Marito who you are and what is going on, I am sure they will do anything they can to help you,” the brunet continued. “But that is a decision you will have to make on your own. If you have something or someone back there who needs you, I understand if you decide to stay silent and make attempts to go back.”

“N-no, that’s not it,” Slaine whimpered and looked up at the other. “I have nothing left there.”

“Was that why you tried to kill yourself?” Inaho wondered. “Because you have nothing left?” Slaine nodded. “Was this something taken away from you the same night you tried to commit suicide?”

“My roommate was murdered,” Slaine whispered and began to feel sick again. The images of the dead Trillram lying in a puddle of blood flickered in his mind, making him feel nauseous.

“What about your family?” Inaho asked, and Slaine shook his head and swallowed down the nausea.

“I don’t have one. My dad killed himself when I was a teenager, and I never knew my mom,” the blond answered with a thick voice and dried his tears.

“Do you know why your dad committed suicide?”

“Yeah, but I can’t speak about that,” the tired blond said and nodded to the next question:

“Because you fear the consequences of it if you tell?”

This young man called Inaho was good at figuring out questions that were right on the spot. Even if the questions perhaps were questions anyone could come up with, Inaho was not hesitating to ask them. Slaine liked this quality in the stranger, but it made him wary of him as well. If the blond was careless with his answers, he might accidentally say something he would regret.

“Do you know why you’re put in this position of selling yourself?” Inaho then asked, and Slaine smiled wryly.

“It’s quite cliché, really. My father created a debt when he killed himself, and I was kidnapped and broken in to pay it all back. It’s too big, however; I will never be able to pay it back no matter how hard I work,” he answered and released a sorrowful chuckle. “It’s just like in the movies.”

“Not really,” Inaho pointed out. “In a movie, the character dies but not the actor. In real life, the actor dies with the character, since they’re the same person.” This made Slaine feel bad, like he had said something childish. “Even if you tried to commit suicide three days ago, I doubt you really want to die. You just want to end the pain without having to die, but you think you have no choice but to die in order to end the pain, right?”

Even if Inaho was right on the spot, Slaine began to feel insulted by how much the brunet read into his situation. He was thankful for the brunet to be so observant, but it also trespassed on Slaine’s integrity.

‘ _But I have no right to be angry with him. He seems to say these things because he cares_ ,’ he thought and sighed.

“You’re right about that,” he said instead while trying to push his anger away. “Are you some kind of psychologist or something?”

“No,” the brunet answered. “I just helped my sister with her school work when she was studying to become a police officer. They have some basic psychology on the schedule, and I read through the entire book in order to test her before her exam, but she seems to have forgotten all about it. I’m more into physics and math, actually.”

Slaine stared at him dumbfounded for a moment before he felt a laughter bubble up from the empty pit of his stomach, and he released a chuckle.

“Are you serious? I would’ve never guessed since you seem so at home with psychology,” he said and cleared his throat to calm down. “I was surprised. Sorry.”

“Do you have any hobby?” Inaho wondered after staring awkwardly at Slaine for a while.

“No,” the blond answered and frowned. His lighter mood disappeared immediately.

“Too busy surviving?” the brunet hypothesized, and Slaine nodded downheartedly. “Well, if you want us to help you,” he continued and got up from the chair. The blond looked up at him, suddenly feeling horribly lonely for the other leaving. “Then just let Marito or Yuki know. They’ll be guarding you in shifts since they still believe you’re a criminal. You should be safe for now.”

When the brunet began walking toward the door, Slaine’s mind quickly twisted and turned his options. If he let this young man go, Slaine would never speak up and be put in jail instead. If he chose to stop him from leaving, the blond could grab a chance to escape the dangerous life he had lived thus far.

‘ _I won’t be able to survive on my own_ ,’ he thought and desperately breathed in a gulp of air, and said:

“Wait…!” To his relief, the brunet stopped and turned around to look at him. “I-“ the blond began and hesitated. “I’m…” He got tears in his eyes again, and he finally exclaimed with a heartbreaking whimper, speaking so fast his words stumbled over each other: “Help me. My name is Slaine Troyard, born in Tampere, Finland, on the eleventh of January in 1998 to a Finnish mom and a French dad. My mom died in childbirth, and my dad took care of me until he killed himself. I have been legally dead for five years and lived in an apartment in the suburb of Shinawara, forced to pay my dad’s debt to a money shark. My roommate has been murdered and I’m scared to go back. Please, help me!”

The brunet stared at him for a while, probably surprised to hear the blond blurt out so much information so quickly, but then nodded.

“Nice meeting you, Slaine Troyard,” he said and called for the cops.

A confusing carousel was set in motion after that. Slaine was questioned by both Marito and Yuki, both of them unbelieving of what he told them at first. Marito had been aggressively denying Slaine’s story, while Yuki had been conflicted in what to believe. The blond figured they were used to hearing criminals lie, and kept pushing on with support from the brown-haired young man who had stayed with him. Then, after Slaine had explained how he had lived for those five dead years and how he had found Trillram shot to death in their apartment, the cops had begun to believe him. The cuts and bruises, scars and cigarette burns strengthened the truth in his words.

He being legally dead was an issue, and not being able to prove his identity due to no identification of any kind became an even greater issue since the identification forms he had were all fake. There were no family members to confirm his identity, and he could not remember his social security number. Both Yuki and Marito had no idea of what to do with such a case, but they did warn him thoroughly about the accommodation issue concerning trafficking victims, especially foreigners.

If Slaine cooperated with the police; told them everything he knew about Cruhteo and Vers Pharmaceuticals and served as a witness in court, he would be allowed to stay in Japan for six months but get very limited healthcare and protection because he was a foreigner, probably even be housed in a deportation center for illegal immigrants. If he refused, he would be deported to Finland and let the Finnish government take care of his case – if the country would have him.

He being dead complicated even the possible deportation, since if his home country refused to take him in, he would probably be detained in Japan until they were forced to release him due to laws and human rights, and then he would be back on the streets until he was arrested again.

This made Slaine terrified. He knew Japan was careful to hide their trafficking statistics for reasons he had no idea about, and he also knew their existing trafficking statistics with low numbers were as wrong as they could become; the country was a major destination and transit country for human trafficking. Plenty of trafficking victims in the red-light district had shared their knowledge with him, letting him know the government filed traffickers with other charges than trafficking to hide the actual trafficking numbers among sentences such as rape, illegal confinement, threat and murder.

The foreign victims were treated as illegal immigrants rather than victims of crime, and were forced out of the country with barely any support, while the nationals were treated with care. Those who were not successfully deported were soon back in the red-light districts under their previous debt bondage, and most of those were eventually killed or committed suicide.

Another issue the blond found was that Slaine had nothing to go back to in Finland – a country he had not been in for fourteen years. His father had taken him to France after living in Finland for five years, and then moved from France to Japan when Slaine had been eleven years old. He had no affiliation to either country.

On top of all that, he could not give out information about Cruhteo and the drug company since he feared for his life. Inaho had tried to convince both parties to give in and cooperate, but nor the cops or Slaine had budged – the cops because they could not break the law, and Slaine because he feared for his life.

In the end, Slaine was completely in the mercy of the broken support system for trafficking victims. If he wanted to survive by staying silent, he would be treated as an illegal immigrant without any support. It was like an additional punishment; he was already a victim, and now he risked of being treated as someone who resided illegally in a country, to where his father had taken him when he had been an eleven year old boy. This drained him and made his craving for Aldnoah increase for each moment that passed, until the withdrawal symptoms emerged at midnight.

‘ _I should have never said anything!_ ’ he had thought while hyperventilating from anxiety. His head hurt like it was being crushed and his body trembled. On top of that, his pulse was horribly fast, amplifying the anxiety. ‘ _Inaho told me this isn’t my fault, but why do they punish me like this?!_ ’

It was in the middle of the night as he finally decided he should go back to Cruhteo. With cold sweat soaking the clothes he had borrowed from the hospital, and with it dripping from his chin, he quietly opened the door and peeked outside. The withdrawal symptoms were difficult and made him feel weak and disoriented.

Yuki sat sleeping on the chair outside the room, slumped down against the wall behind her and had a trail of saliva running down from the right corner of her lips. Slaine sneaked past her with a blanket over his shoulders and made sure his slippers would not clap loudly as he walked.

After rounding a corner, he began hurrying through the hospital corridors, trying to find his way out.

He rode the elevator two floors down and exited into a dark and empty lobby. He found only two people in his immediate proximity; a young woman crying while someone who looked like her mother held her in her arms. He ignored them and hurried toward the exit doors, and, just as he hurried past the closed cafeteria, a familiar voice said:

“It’s really cold outside.”

Slaine stopped immediately and turned to look toward the tables and chairs outside the cafeteria, and saw a brown-haired young man sit on the red leather couch next to a table with a heavy-looking book in front of him. His burgundy eyes looked up at Slaine while he held a pen that rested against a notebook in his lap.

“I-Inaho…” Slaine said trembling and felt nauseous from the withdrawal. “I can’t stay,” he then gasped and watched Inaho close the book and put his tings into a bag lying on the floor.

“I was supposed to bring Yuki some food, but she was asleep. I decided to sit here and study a little,” the brunet said and got up from the couch, bringing his coat and bag with him. “Where are you going?”

“N-nowhere,” the guarded blond answered and took a step back. He was so weak he barely could hold his tears back.

“That doesn’t sound like a productive place to go to,” Inaho answered and offered Slaine his coat. “How about coming home with me? You can sleep on the couch.”

The blond hesitated.

“Won’t you be in trouble if I accept your offer?” Slaine asked exhausted, and Inaho shook his head.

“Don’t worry about that,” the brunet said and waited for the blond to take the coat. “We should take a taxi since your situation is somewhat problematic.”

The way the brunet spoke made Slaine’s guard drop, and he accepted the coat and pulled it on. Then, he followed the young man out to hail a taxi, and Slaine was taken to a common working class area with apartment buildings. He recognized the area since he had been here many times before with clients living here.

Inaho paid for the taxi and showed Slaine up some stairs in an apartment building. Once the door into the apartment was unlocked and opened, a gentle scent filled the blond’s nostrils. The homeliness smell was warm and safe, which allowed Slaine to relax.

“The couch is big enough for a person to sleep on,” the brunet said after taking off his shoes and hanging up the coat Slaine had borrowed.

He put some clean slippers onto the floor in front of the blond, and then walked into the living room. Slaine hurried after him, changing the hospital slippers into the ones Inaho had given him before stepping properly inside the hallway.

“I won’t stop you from running away, but I would suggest you stay until tomorrow and get some breakfast if you decide to leave,” Inaho continued and removed the decorative pillows from the couch. “If you want to stay, you are welcome to do so as well, and we can figure out what else we can do to help you after some sleep.”

Slaine stepped aside to let Inaho past him as he walked out of the living room.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, still trembling. “You can choose to ignore me with a clear conscience since I have no value to you.”

“I think you should give yourself some self-value. You’re treating yourself like a dead man,” Inaho said and came back with linen in his arms.

Slaine shook his head and crouched down on the floor to hug his knees.

“That’s because I am,” he mumbled. “Besides, it’s difficult to value myself when no one has given me any other kind of value than eight-thousand yen at most.”

“Perhaps that’s why I care,” Inaho said and began preparing Slaine’s bed on the couch. “I feel responsible for you since I saved your life, and I can’t sit back and watch you fall victim to difficult circumstances because you can’t prevent that from happening yourself.”

“You pity me?” the blond asked with a wry smile.

“I do. Is that bad?” the brunet asked.

Slaine smiled and took a deep breath while hiding his face against his knees; he had begun to cry quietly.

“No… Thank you,” he whispered instead and felt happy for someone acknowledging him as a being capable of suffering. “I don’t remember the last time someone did that.”

“Get some sleep, Troyard, and I’ll wake you up for breakfast. If you need anything, help yourself or wake me up. I’m in the room farthest down the corridor,” the brunet said once the bed on the couch had been made, and walked past Slaine. “Good night.”

The blond whispered good night and waited until the brunet disappeared into the bathroom before moving to the couch. He slipped down between the crispy sheets and let his trembling and exhausted body relax. Without noticing it, he fell asleep within seconds.

∞∞

In the morning, he woke up to the smell of something cooking and faint sound of brusque whispers from the kitchen. The blond looked around to orientate, wondering briefly if this was at a client’s house before he remembered Inaho who had taken him in after Slaine had tried to escape from the hospital.

He wondered what the whispers said and who these two whispering beings were, and figured one of them was Inaho. The identity of the other stressed his heart into a rough beat, and it hammered aggressively enough his body shook. Silently, with worry brewing in his stomach, he got up from the couch and sneaked closer to the kitchen door, only to hear Inaho and this other whisper about him.

According to the unknown person, Slaine was a bother. He should not be here since it was illegal to help hiding him from the law. Inaho on the other hand argued back that the blond was in need of someone to look out for him – that perhaps if Slaine got a little more time to figure things out, he would decide to serve as a witness in court once a successful apprehension of the criminals, whose names Slaine would hopefully state, had been made.

“But he’s an addict and can’t be trust-“

“Be careful of your personal prejudice. You know how the underworld works,” Slaine heard Inaho interrupt the other. The blond had a feeling this other person was Inaho’s sister, and he felt somewhat stressed out for having a cop close by. “If they force you into prostitution, they make sure you’ll get addicted to drugs to motivate you. Slaine has probably gone through that process. I think he wants help; he’s just reserved because he’s scared.”

Slaine could not help but to feel misjudged by the one he believed was Yuki. Her insult burned him and made him realize he had some pride left after all.

He stepped forward, out from behind the corner and showed himself in the kitchen doorway. Inaho and his sister came into view.

“They give you drugs at first to break you in,” he said and watched both of the Kaizuka siblings turn toward him.

Yuki looked surprised while Inaho still wore the same expression Slaine had seen yesterday.

“That way, you won’t be able to escape or fight back when they assault you while they continue to break you until you’re obedient out of fear,” the blond continued and leaned against the door post. “After that, you understand you have no choice but to do as they say if you want to survive, and the drugs that previously made you defenseless become your friends; they keep you going. After a while, though,” he mumbled and raised his right arm to wrap it over his chest to stay calm as a bitter taste began to spread in his mouth. “You start forgetting where you’re going and why.”

The siblings were silent for a while. Inaho looked unaffected by Slaine’s story, while Yuki got a sour look on her face, as though Slaine had told her something that made her feel guilty. The blond wanted her to understand he had no wish to continue with the exhausting life he lived.

No one wanted to be addicted to drugs and people had to understand that. Perhaps some thought of drugs as fun – like the kids who frequented the red-light district to buy party drugs and services from sex trafficking victims – but most of those who had a full addiction career were exhausted by the drugs and wanted a change. They simply had no idea how to, since their life had already fallen too much apart.

Those people needed help – all the help they could get – and needed a supporting person there for them even if they failed to stay away from the harmful substances again and again. Giving up on drug abusers who voiced a wish to be free from drugs was like confirming they were hopeless, which would only motivate them to not try again. Even if they failed their tries to get better thirty times in a row, the thirty-first time could be a success.

‘ _I don’t want to be like this_ ,’ the blond thought and felt his heart sink in his chest. ‘ _But I have no one’s name to call for help. Being alone like this is tough_.’

As neither of the Kaizuka siblings said a word, Slaine sighed and gritted his teeth, carefully pulling back from the door to hide in the shadows behind the corner.

“I’ll leave,” he said quietly. “I made a mistake last night. I’m sorry.”

Yuki released an exacerbated sigh and asked, somewhat angered:

“And where’ll you go? Back to the gutter?”

Slaine did not answer, since he did not know where he could go, and her voice was horribly accusatory, scaring him from forming an answer.

“After being away this long, do you think your pimp will welcome you with a smile and open arms? That Cruhteo will kill you.”

“He won’t,” Slaine answered quietly.

“How can you be sure of that?” asked the brunet who looked at him intently.

Slaine gritted his teeth before answering:

“Because he has some kind of fixation in me…”

Yuki scoffed in a demeaning manner:

“Is that so? So, you’ll crawl back into his bed when you leave here?”

‘ _Why do you say that?_ ’ Slaine thought and held his breath to hold his feelings in check.

“Is that an easy solution?”

‘ _No. I just have nowhere else to go._ ’

“To continue whoring yourself to stranger and keep taking drugs?”

‘ _That’s all I know_.’

“Don’t you have any self-respect?”

‘ _Stop!_ ’

“Why won’t you just give us some names and we’ll help you?”

‘ _That’s dangerous! I’m too scared!_ ’

“Is that form of life better than risking it in order to get a chance to be free?!”

“Yuki,” Inaho said suddenly to stop her from spiraling out of control. He placed two cups of coffee on the breakfast table that was set for two; he setting the table had gone unnoticed. “Go to bed. You’ve had a tough night with the deviation report from last night.”

“But Nao!” she exclaimed and turned to look at him with a concerned expression, unsettled by the fact that her brother was protecting Slaine.

“Get some rest. You’re in a bad mood, so sleep it off and let’s talk about this later,” her brother continued and stared at her.

Slaine had a feeling he was commanding her, since Yuki gave up with an irritated groan before storming out of the kitchen. The pathetic blond cowered against the wall right outside the door as she walked past him with a warning glare aimed at him before disappearing into a room connected to the living room.

“I made you breakfast,” the brunet then said as he and Slaine were left alone, and the blond peeked from behind the door opening to look into the kitchen. “You must be weak from hunger.”

The other sat down next to the table and began to spread butter on the toasted bread lying on a plate. There were all sorts of prepared foods on plates; sliced cucumber, tomatoes, cheese, eggroll, and ham among others. Two glasses were placed out next to steaming cups of coffee, and a pitcher with orange juice and a newly opened milk carton stood between them.

“Why are you doing this?” Slaine asked quietly and watched Inaho look up at him with his burgundy, expressionless eyes.

“I told you; I feel responsible since I was there to save your life,” the other said, and Slaine’s heart moved as a strange relief washed over him from hearing that.

“Last night…” Slaine said instead and took a deep breath before continuing: “You were guarding the exit at the hospital. You knew I would try to run.”

“No,” the brunet said without looking up at him. “Yuki was exhausted and needed some sleep; she has jumped in for a colleague who’s on sick leave to do the night shifts for a couple of weeks. I thought of guarding the exit just in case, but I wasn’t sure if you would run or not.”

“I could have forced my way out,” Slaine warned him, but Inaho seemed confident when he said:

“You were in bad shape during the day; I could have easily had the upper hand if we would have had a physical confrontation.” When Slaine stayed silent, the brunet urged: “Come get some breakfast. Eat all you want. I’ll prepare more if the plates are emptied.”

The blond hesitated for a good while, thinking of what to do. Would he accept the other’s offer? His savior seemed to have no wish to keep Slaine at a distance, but rather invited the miserable being to intrude his comfortable life. It went beyond the blond’s understanding to why someone willingly allowed a broken soul to pester them during breakfast, but, after contemplating it for a while, Slaine decided to accept the brunet’s kindness and dared to venture into the kitchen and sit down next to the breakfast table to have a bite.

Their breakfast was pleasant. They barely spoke at all, only asking the other to pass something over the table now and then. The wordless atmosphere did not bother him. To Slaine, this was one of those rare and peaceful moments that soothed him greatly.

Sitting with someone who meant him no harm; who did not treat him like a broken toy the morning after; who saw him as a human being rather than a beaten dog, was like getting a sticking plaster put over one of the many cracks he had in his heart, which normally bled with emotion. This allowed him to contain a certain joy he had not felt for a long time; the joy from having a brief and mutual connection to another being.

Once breakfast was done, Inaho let him know he needed to do some school work. Slaine was allowed to take a shower and got some spare clothes from the other’s closet, and the blond hesitantly accepted them and the offer.

‘ _How much am I allowed to accept from him?_ ’ Slaine wondered while showering. He carefully cleaned his wounds that had apparently been properly dealt with during his unconscious stay in the hospital. They had begun to heal.

After stepping out of the shower, dressed in neat clothes, he sat down on the couch and curled up with his knees against his chest. He stared at the coffee table before him, feeling the weakness still linger after the withdrawal, and spaced out after a try to think of his next move. His mind was not ready to accept a dangerous decision like that, and it did the decision of halting those thoughts all together, leaving his head entirely empty.

He had no idea for how long he had been sitting there before Inaho showed up to let him know he had prepared some lunch. Slaine, who was unused to eating more than once a day, tried to decline the brunet’s offer, but, after some convincing, the blond ended up sitting next to the kitchen table once again to enjoy the taste of Inaho’s curry rice. A portion of it stood on the kitchen counter on a plate, wrapped in plastic to save it for the oldest of the Kaizuka siblings.

Throughout the rest of the day, Slaine avoided Yuki once she woke up and sat silently in a corner of the couch, curled up again to try thinking of the options he had at hand. Once again, he came to no conclusion. Instead, he had listened to Yuki arguing with her brother before leaving for work, telling the brunet she was risking her job for hiding an illegal immigrant in her own apartment.

Although her arguments were rational, Inaho pushed her to accept Slaine’s presence, telling her the blond should be allowed to think things through. Making a tough decision required time and great effort – especially since Slaine was probably going through an existential crisis. Time, he said, was all Slaine needed along with proper meals to keep his mind going.

‘ _So that’s why he convinced me to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner_ ,’ Slaine thought and felt his heart beat softly. ‘ _He’s so attentive and kind_.’

Once evening fell, Inaho prepared himself for bed before reminding Slaine to do the same. A spare toothbrush had been put in the cup on the bathroom sink. The sight of three toothbrushes in the cup made the blond smile lightly as he got the feeling of being included somehow, like living in a normal family.

He wondered how much Inaho was actually doing consciously to make him relax; the brunet seemed quick to catch up on shifts in the atmosphere and was willing to let Slaine think through his troubles in peace. On top of that, he was unbothered by having Slaine there and did his school work as though Slaine belonged in the apartment with him and his sister.

Inaho’s interest in math and physics was somewhat ironic, considering how good he was with people, the blond thought. He would have suited as a caregiver of some kind or perhaps as a psychologist even.

After brushing his teeth, the blond lay down on the couch beneath the duvet, but felt awfully lonely. The images of the blood-drenched Trillram floated into mind and his heart burst open, making tears roll down his cheeks before he got the chance to shake the memory out of his head.

By accepting the image, he was finally allowed to grieve for his lost roommate who had met an unfair end to his poor life. Despite the abusive relationship they had had, Trillram had been a companion through those five years of misery. They had suffered together, clumsily licked each other’s wounds while tending to their own after life had given them a good beating. The next day, they had been up on their feet again, supporting each other from their separate poles in the trying world where they had no choice but to linger, only to be beaten down again. Just like that, the circle had continued – until it was broken a couple of days ago.

Without that repetitive pattern to his life, Slaine felt utterly lost. He had no warm body to curl up with after returning to a cold home from the streets. He had no one he could yap with about trivial things. He had no one to sit next to and stare at the chipping ceiling paint with while feeling high and ponder about tomorrow.

A bittersweet realization hit him as he found that he missed Trillram’s way of handling the needle when injecting him with Aldnoah. That careful and precious way of puncturing Slaine’s skin and artery had been one of those kind things Trillram had used to do for him; a moment where he showed Slaine his gratitude for sharing the miserable existence with him. A normal person would have thought of it as destructive, but for Slaine it had meant a great deal when Trillram had showed him that kind of consideration. In a way, it had made life possible.

Guilt poured over him for leaving Trillram’s body in the apartment, and he felt an urgent need for the relief granted by Aldnoah. Cold sweat dampened his clothes and he held back a desperate whimper. It was impossible to handle this grief and guilt alone and he wondered if he was allowed to bother the brunet with his pathetic need for support. Trillram would have probably forced himself on Slaine or injected him with Aldnoah to shush him before having his way with him if Slaine had tried to ask him for support, but the blond would have been grateful nonetheless. Now, however, Slaine did not have him to curl up with.

Trembling, he got up from the couch and pulled the duvet around him to walk down the hallway and give Inaho’s bedroom door a gentle knock. To his relief, the lights were still on in the other’s room, and he was asked to step inside.

“I’m sorry to bother you…” Slaine said shamefully and lowered his eyes when opening the door.

“It’s all right,” the brunet – dressed in a blue pajama – answered where he sat next to his computer, tinkering with some kind of software; his screen showed graphs and diagrams of things Slaine had no knowledge about.

“I…” the blond began to explain, taking a shallow breath before continuing: “I feel withdrawal again and … I keep thinking of my roommate. I can’t sleep.”

“The shock must have been great to find him like that,” Inaho said with his usual tone of voice.

“Y-yeah,” Slaine mumbled and felt shame weigh on his already slumped shoulder. “Can I … sit next to your bed for a while? I won’t bother you.”

“You don’t want to be alone?” the brunet asked and went back to tinker with the program.

The blond shook his head weakly, saying:

“My roommate used to keep me company. I just … can’t seem to deal with anxiety alone and without drugs.”

“I can make a bed on the floor for you,” the brunet suggested and began turning the computer off.

Slaine hurriedly declined the offer and explained it was enough to let him sit next to the bed.

In the end, Inaho agreed and Slaine curled up in the duvet on the floor at the foot end of the bed, with his back against the bedframe. Inaho turned the lights off and lay down in bed, setting his alarm and told Slaine he had school the next day.

“I’ll be back at five,” he said. “If you stay here, just ignore Yuki. She won’t bother you if you stay out of her way.”

“She gives into your demands?” Slaine asked and smiled weakly. “Aren’t you a younger brother?”

“She’s driven by guilt for things that happened a long time ago and is lenient with most of my decisions. She can’t seem to be too strict with me,” the brunet answered. “I think she really wants you to help the law, so she’s willing to wait and see if you decide to cooperate.”

“I … see,” the blond mumbled and rested his cheek against a knee. “What do you study by the way?” he then asked to change the topic of their discussion. “You seem to read really heavy books.”

“I’m studying physics which requires a lot of math as well. I want to advance and build further on it once the basic education is done,” the brunet answered curtly.

“Physics and math?” Slaine asked and chuckled quietly: “Sounds like you’re trying to calculate how magic works or something. Isn’t physics hard?”

“Not really,” the brunet said. “I have an interest in it since it’s easy to understand once you have understood the basics. It’s not like people, who are subjective beings and difficult to grasp.”

“Subjective beings?” Slaine asked confused; he had never heard that before.

“A unique being who searches for a meaning in life, and who also perceives the world through their individual thoughts, emotions and experiences.”

“Oh… You know a lot, huh?” Slaine asked and felt downhearted for being so uneducated. “I think you would do great with people, too.”

“I’ve just read it in Yuki’s psychology literature. I prefer physics,” the brunet explained bluntly, and Slaine chuckled again.

“I’m a little jealous. I wish I could have finished school,” he said quietly and remembered back to his younger teenage school years. “My grades were average, though.”

“You can catch up,” he heard Inaho say before he turned in bed; the sheets rustled softly.

“Sure…” the blond sighed and frowned.

They were silent for a little while, and then Inaho said:

“If you’re here tomorrow when I come home, I can teach you a little about physics.”

Something lit up in Slaine’s chest that made him feel less distressed and anxious, and, with a smile on his lips, he accepted the brunet’s offer with gratitude – unexpectedly falling asleep a couple of exhausted breaths later.

∞∞

A handful of days passed. Inaho went to school like usual and came home in the early evenings, just about an hour before Yuki ran out through the door – nearly late for work each day – after indirectly getting a scolding from her brother for being too optimistic about time. Slaine found it difficult to make the days pass with her around, since he could not help but to feel she was guarded around him. At the same time, he was grateful she worked night shifts, since this gave Slaine a good moment to spend some alone-time with the brunet, who taught him about the absolute basics of physics after dinner every day.

The blond found these moments precious, since he was genuinely interested and flabbergasted about the unknown laws of nature that surrounded him, and it was a pleasant way to give his overworked mind a break after spending the entire day pondering on what decision he should make. Would he go back to the streets and place himself in Cruhteo’s hands again, or would he claim he was a criminal and be put to jail only to be murdered? None of these options felt as right as the one requiring him to risk his life by cooperating with the police, since – if he survived it – he would be treated like an individual at the end of it all.

Inaho was impressive in many ways, Slaine noticed. The young man was driven to reach his goal in life, and – while he was busy working toward that goal by doing homework and go to school – he also managed to take care of the household and prepared breakfast and lunch for his sister and Slaine to eat while they waited for him to return.

Even Yuki was impressive even though Slaine had difficulties of getting to know her due to her dismissive nature. She worked night shifts every night and would do so for two more weeks, doing her best to keep the city safe during the nights and probably met a lot of troublesome people during her working hours. In the early mornings, she would return and crash in her bed and wake up slightly after lunch, ready to take on yet another day with a seemingly endless fighting spirit and confidence.

It was strange to see someone be so strong after subjecting herself to dangers during the nights and it made Slaine feel somewhat inferior, since he had no way to cope with danger; his mind could not take it and instead shut down the moment he found himself in a dangerous moment. The emotions such situations brought forth bled out through a large gap in his heart, emptying him quickly and made him into a passive victim.

He knew he and Yuki had very different backgrounds, which put them on different ends of the spectrum of the ability to handle such situations, but he could still not shake the feeling off that he should try harder; he needed to stop lying down and take the beating, just like Yuki.

He was tired of having his body conquered by strangers. He was sick of not having an identity or individuality, and he was worn-out from treating his anxiety and melancholy with drugs. Never had he wanted to go back to school as much he wanted now after being inspired by the friendly young man teaching him about physics.

He wanted to feel how a normal life felt like by having a normal job and live in a normal apartment, ride the busses and trams and trains to work and back home like normal people did, have a fridge filled with own-bought food and pay his bills with self-earned money, and get a comfortable network of friends to hang out with.

He wanted to be habilitated and leave the hardships behind; he was confident nothing could be as hard as the life he had led thus far, which made him sure he would be able to handle most downfalls and problems included in a normal life.

Normal, normal, normal, normal; he wanted to be nothing but normal. Would he manage to achieve that goal? Trillram had been convincing him otherwise, telling Slaine he was already too broken to be able to live a normal life and that he should give up on even the thought. Back then, Slaine had accepted it, but now he wanted to deny that and work harder.

Remembering his former roommates words reminded him about what had happened to the other as the emptiness of Trillram still clung to him like an uncomfortable wet blanket. The ghastly image of his dead body haunted Slaine’s mind when he least expected it. It seemed to take the chance to assault him with guilt and anxiety the moment his mind was unwinding during the evenings, which made him want to seek out the comfortable presence of the brunet who studied in his room before bedtime. Slaine had attempted to handle this problem alone ever since the first time he had bothered Inaho with his fear of being alone, and it had left him exhausted since he got just a couple of hours of sleep each night.

The walk on this new and difficult road was unlike anything else he had experienced. Inaho provided him with a safe place to stay – a place where he could think things through in peace – and gave him a value Slaine had not had for a very long time. For each day that passed, Slaine began to feel less like a ghost and more like a person, since that was how he was met by the other every day.

Even if he felt enormous cravings for Aldnoah, he could still find motivation to bear the abstinence through the value he was given by the brunet, and Slaine wondered if Inaho had consciously done everything he could to give Slaine a chance to come to a turning point in his life. By acknowledging the blond’s pain and struggle, and by being willing to look him in the eyes whenever their faces met in the small apartment, Slaine had gotten the confirmation of being seen and heard by someone for the first time in many years.

Most people preferred not to see him and avoided looking him in the eyes, almost as though they refused to form any kind of communication with him, not even wanting to see him shivering in the cold. Others looked at him with distain or indifference, since the single thing those people were interested in was what they could do with him to feed their greed and sadistic mind; they had never seen him as someone who got a piece of his self chipped away each time they bought him on the streets.

That kind of people never realized they stole a part of him when they paid him money for his services, or then they just simply did not care. He being a nameless ghost gave them that immoral right since no one would come to Slaine’s rescue, and they were aware of that.

Who would care about a dirty rat shivering in a corner of a street in the slums and red-light districts, where empathy flowed down the sewers the moment people stepped inside the lawless realm in search for pleasures? Those working in such places were not humans for them; they were simply objects and nothing else. Empathy and pleasure were always incompatible, especially in places like the red-light district.

Inaho was not like those people, and Slaine gladly admitted he had been lucky to be saved by him that night of Trillram’s murder. Not only had he saved his life back then, but he was saving Slaine’s heart from completely falling apart as well for each day that passed. It was the simple things the brunet did that were more valuable than diamonds and gold; giving him space, offering him food, allowing him to crash on the couch, teaching him about things Slaine had never heard of before, and treated him like any other person. Slaine secretly wondered when his heart would begin to heal as well, and how it would feel like once it was completely whole again.

‘ _Will I get that far?_ ’ he thought one late evening while sitting in his usual corner on the couch, hugging the pillow he borrowed during his stay in the Kaizuka household. ‘ _Will my heart be whole again?_ ’ He tightened the hug around the pillow and smiled. ‘ _Inaho… You really are good with people despite your poor expressive nature. You don’t look like you react emotionally to anything, but the things you do show how attentive you actually are. You take care of Yuki in so many small ways she probably doesn’t notice them, and you read someone like me better than even I do._ ’

At times, Slaine was convinced Inaho knew him better than he himself did. This felt soothing and made a warm sensation spread in his stomach and chest. It felt good to know someone was willing to peek through the cracks in the blond’s façade and truly see him, since it made Slaine feel like he was guided toward the right track in life. The blond had been lost for so long, but he was slowly finding back to a path he had lost sight of a long time ago; the path toward a normal life.

‘ _Am I ready to take the first step?_ ’ the blond wondered, thinking if he should tell Yuki once she came back home that he had decided to cooperate with the cops. ‘ _It feels like it’s the right thing to do – for my own sake._ ’

Then again, it felt frightening to someday meet Cruhteo face-to-face in court, and probably Asseylum’s grandfather as well. It was horribly unpleasant to testify against them, tell the judge everything he knew so he could buy his freedom back with this last service, and get support from the Japanese government for a while until he had been reborn in the civil registration and gotten his identity back. Of course, just like the clients who bought him stole a part of him, this last service of cooperating with the law risked stealing his life away; he would certainly become a target for revenge as Cruhteo would put a price on his head.

‘ _Can I do it?_ ’ he wondered and held his breath for a while. His heart began to race and the cravings for Aldnoah resurfaced; anxiety and sickness bubbled up again. ‘ _But that’s the only thing I_ can _do, right?_ ’

He needed to consult with Inaho. He had to break the spiral of hesitation that would only convince him to reconsider his decision yet again.

Hesitantly, he got up from the couch and pulled the duvet tighter around his shoulders. He carefully walked down the hallway – used to sneaking through someone else’s hallway to leave after his services. When he reached Inaho’s room, he gently knocked on the door. Just like last time, he was asked to step in with the usual monotone but soft voice that he had grown used to hearing every day.

“Am I interrupting something?” Slaine asked quietly and peeked into the room without opening the door all the way.

“No,” was the answer. Inaho stared at him with his usual expression from where he sat in front of the desk. “What is it?”

Slaine frowned and bit his lip before stepping inside the room and walked over to the foot end of the bed where he curled up just like last time he had disturbed Inaho’s private space, silently telling the other he needed company again. The brunet’s eyes rested on him for a short moment before he turned back around to continue with his school work.

The blond listened to him tap and klick away on the keyboard and mouse, feeling the comfort from the sound of someone else’s existence. It made him relax, and he smiled again.

Inaho’s presence truly was heartening.

“Inaho…” he mumbled after a while, and the tapping and clicking stopped. “If I survive the cooperation process and all, will I see you again?”

“You have decided to cooperate with the police?” the brunet asked without a reaction. Slaine nodded. “Do you want to see me again?” Slaine nodded once more, hiding his face against his knees.

Perhaps he was attached to the brunet simply because he had been so kind and treated Slaine like an individual, but Slaine could not help but to feel miserable at the mere thought of never seeing Inaho again. He had no other people around him; no one cared about him at all outside this small apartment, and he wanted to at least stay in contact with the one who had saved him many times ever since his suicide attempt.

Inaho continued to tap and click for a little while more, and then turned his computer off and slipped into bed after turning the lights off.

“Isn’t it cold on the floor?” Slaine heard the soft voice ask.

“It’s all right,” the blond answered, hiding his cold toes beneath the duvet to warm them up.

“I have some room on the bed if you want to share it.”

Slaine’s heart nearly stopped. He opened his eyes wide and stared at empty space, not moving. His body stiffened and his breathing shallowed. Nervousness had struck him.

‘ _Is he trying to comfort me so I won’t change my mind about cooperating with the cops?_ ’ Slaine wondered, but decided to leap at the opportunity to feel the brunet’s closeness by getting up from the floor and look at the waiting gaze from the other. ‘ _Is this really all right?_ ’

Inaho suddenly moved toward the wall behind his bed to give Slaine some room, and that was the blond’s cue. He crawled awkwardly onto the bed and lay down as far away from Inaho as possible to give him space, and curled up beneath his own duvet, his heart hammering in his chest. Why was he so nervous? He had bedded so many clients in his life that he had forgotten how enthrallingly nervous it should feel with a person.

“You don’t have to hide at the edge,” the brunet said behind him, unaffected as usual. “Get some sleep, and we’ll talk to sis once she returns home in the morning.”

“Thank you,” Slaine mumbled stiffly, listening to Inaho’s sounds closely behind him. “I’m sorry for intruding on your personal space.”

“You’re not,” the other answered bluntly.

‘ _Really?_ ’

Slaine had to admit he admired Inaho’s calmness and leniency when it came to his needs; the brunet had given him so much during his short stay in this apartment that Slaine had no idea how he could show him his gratitude, since he had nothing to offer.

“Inaho…” Slaine decided to say, and heard the other acknowledge his invitation to communicate. “You really have saved me. I don’t like to think about how I was about to destroy myself just about a week ago, so thank you. You’re really amazing for doing all this, and I also think you’re admirable the way you find time to care for others despite your busy schedule.”

“I don’t think I’m that busy and therefore not as amazing as you seem to think,” the brunet answered frankly, sounding more rational than denying of what Slaine had said.

The blond shook his head:

“Everything you do really counts and you sometimes go completely out of your way – like you’re doing right now by allowing me to share your bed. You stayed at the hospital in the middle of the night to guard the exit just so your sister could get some sleep, and you invited someone like me to stay in your household,” Slaine said and felt tears in his eyes from how grateful he was. “Even the small things you do, like adding my toothbrush into the cup with yours and Yuki’s to make me feel included, or lending me your own clothes and cooking meals – even actively giving me opportunities to think in peace – are really meaningful and considerate. You don’t ask me unnecessary questions to snoop around in my mind and background out of simple curiosity either.”

“That’s just normal,” the brunet said, but Slaine shook his head again.

“No, that’s not something most people would do; plenty of people like to dwell in the misery of others,” he protested. “You even teach me about physics every day to motivate me.” Slaine took a deep and trembling breath and dried his tears, which were instantly replaced by new droplets. “Perhaps it doesn’t mean much when it comes from a worthless person like me, but I think you’ll get far in life – both in university and with people – because you’re so amazing. I’m really happy for you.”

The room went quiet. Slaine sniveled and let his tears soak the mattress on which he rested his head. He felt so pathetic but also relieved to finally have voiced his thoughts about the brunet. Every word had been as true as words could become, and he hoped the brunet could take them to heart.

A warm touch caressed Slaine’s back, and the blond stiffened again at the unusual sensation.

“You’re not worthless,” the soft voice finally said. “For someone who has not even their identity, you’re still humble enough to be happy for those who seem to have everything.”

“Isn’t that normal?” Slaine asked, but immediately heard:

“No, most people would get jealous or angry.”

Something flickered in Slaine’s mind at hearing that. It was as though the brunet spoke about something he was familiar with; something he had thought about earlier in life. The words he chose to what he said sounded confident.

“You know that from experience?” he asked quietly and carefully.

“Not from personal experience, but I’ve seen that in the relationships around me. Yuki can be like that at times,” Inaho said, and the blond turned carefully around to look at him. “I simply could identify with your humbleness, since I and Yuki didn’t have much when we grew up either. She became the jealous type while I didn’t think much about what others had, that I didn’t.”

Slaine watched him silently, baffled by how personal the brunet had suddenly become. Inaho telling him something about his past meant a lot for the blond, since no one had really bothered to build such a personal connection to him except for Asseylum. It was as if Inaho was establishing something right now, and Slaine was full of fear of how much hope he should feel about them staying in contact in the future.

‘ _Don’t snuff this flame out; I want to have hope_.’

“I’m sorry,” Slaine whispered while looking at the brunet.

“It’s not your fault,” the other answered, and Slaine smiled wryly and said:

“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant that I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been tough.”

Inaho did not answer, but rather stared at the blond with some kind of intensity billowing in his expression.

“Are you sure about cooperating with the police?” Inaho suddenly asked, and Slaine blinked surprised and began to feel anxious again.

He pressed his lips into a thin line and shifted his gaze somewhere else to avoid Inaho’s studying stare.

“I’m not really sure, but that is the best option,” he answered after a deep breath. “I hate that I have to bend to an unfair law that forces me to risk my life, but my life would be in danger either way. I’m just too scared of all the options to come to a proper and firm decision, but I have to choose one anyway.”

“It’ll be a difficult process for you,” the brunet warned him, and Slaine nodded and gravely frowned at the thought of facing an uncertain future, answering:

“I know, but I am aware of how that difficult process will look like, which gives me some kind of assurance.” He sighed and looked up at the brunet again, this time fearing to ask the question which’s answer carried all of his hope, but he asked nonetheless: “Will you be there for me? It doesn’t have to be in person during the process since I know it’s too dangerous, but will you still stay by my side once this is over?”

He sounded pitiful and frightened – shamefully begging the other to ease his fear with a simple yes.

Inaho sat up in bed and Slaine quickly followed and watched him nervously. They stared at each other for a while, letting some kind of tension in the air grow stronger until it overwhelmed and suffocated the blond. Tears began rolling down his cheeks again at thinking he had finally asked for too much from the brunet, and covered his face with his hands as he crumbled.

“I’m sorry!” he exclaimed with sorrow. “I think I stepped out of line. I’m so sorry. Don’t be angry with me since that would kill me. I’m just so scared to be alone that I’m not sure what I’m saying anymore. I have an opportunity for a second chance in life, but I don’t know for what other reason to take it if it’s not for someone waiting for me at the end of it all! I wish I could say anyone will do so that you don’t have to be burdened, but that’s not true; no one else will do because there isn’t anyone else!”

“Slaine,” the other said, but the blond feared what would follow after his name and interrupted the brunet in order to stall the painful words that would explain to him he had been taken care of during the past days simply because of responsibility and nothing more.

“It’s all right, I understand,” Slaine said and slightly bowed his head from shame, nearly crying his heart out at this point. “T-the death of my roommate, the abstinence of Aldnoah and this tough decision I have been forced to make … makes me weird. Ignore what I sa-“

A gentle hand patted him on his head and Slaine was instantly silenced at the unexpected touch. He held his breath while feeling the warm palm of the brunet caress him awkwardly, as if the other had no idea how to physically comfort someone, and then he heard the soft monotone voice say:

“I’ll stay.”

Slaine released his breath but it was instantly caught in his throat. He slowly lowered his hands to look up at the other, baffled and stunned by what the other had said while tears flowed down his cheeks. Inaho’s sincere gaze collided with his, shattering his already erratic mind and heart, and he watched and heard the other say:

“I’m not angry.”

‘ _Why?_ ’ the blond thought and breathed in a desperate gulp of air out of relief. ‘ _Why are you this kind to me?_ ’

He could not remember a single time in his life when he had felt as relieved as he did from hearing Inaho’s simple but compassionate words. This tremendous relief washed away his fear and worry for a moment, allowing him to breathe and properly feel he was alive. It did not feel like a dream; calling this moment for something so unreal was far too childish and unfair. The gift in the form of a promise of companionship was truer than anything he had encountered before, and it did not matter if it was as brief as a minute.

It was enough to fill him with hope, sparking the little flame into an all-consuming fire. Its nature was chaotic, and his tears continued flowing while a smile spread on his trembling lips.

Without a word, he threw his arms around the other’s neck, hugging him close in an attempt to thank him. For five years, he had only held strangers in his embrace solely to give them what they paid him for, but, now, he held someone who did not pay him or demand anything from him; Slaine was willingly giving the only thing he had and mattered to the brunet for saving his life each hour of the day: his gratitude. It was not much, but he hoped it would be enough.

“I don’t understand why, but thank you,” he cried. “I wish I could properly express how grateful I am.”

Inaho’s arms wrapped around him, still as awkward as ever, and the brunet seemed confused as he asked:

“Aren’t you expressing it as properly as you can right now?” Slaine pulled back and looked at him with a frown while Inaho’s hands still rested on his back. “Aren’t tears a sincere way of showing what you feel?”

Slaine blinked and realized the brunet was right, and his smile widened some more as he asked:

“Did Yuki’s psychology book say that?”

“Yes.”

“And what do _you_ think it means?” the blond wondered and released the other, curious to hear Inaho’s thoughts.

The brunet watched him for a while, probably thinking what he should answer, and finally said:

“I think you’re overwhelmed, and that’s why you’re crying.”

The blond chuckled and dried his tears and snot with the sleeve to the sweater Inaho had borrowed him, happily saying:

“See? You say people are difficult and such, but you’re really good with people.”

Slaine’s words seemed to make the brunet’s mind go over what he had just said, and they silently lay down on the bed again, closer to each other than moments earlier, facing each other. Slaine rested against the mattress and pulled the duvet up to wrap it properly around himself before he relaxed. His breathing had to return to normal before he could fall asleep; he sobbed slightly still, feeling his heart make joyful flips in his chest while his mind soared higher than with Aldnoah.

“I have to make sure and ask once more: Are you sure you’ll cooperate?” the brunet asked, and Slaine opened his eyes and looked at the young man watching him carefully. “If what you say is true, you might be targeted by Cruhteo.”

Slaine took a deep breath, furrowing his brows with determination and nodded.

“As I said earlier, this option is the best for me to choose,” he answered and snuggled deeper into the duvet. “And you gave me something to fight for.”

Inaho was silent for a breath, before asking:

“Are you going to risk your life just to be able to be with me?”

Slaine stared at him without understanding what he meant.

“Yeah. Why else would I bother? I told you: I have nothing except for what you have given me,” the blond answered after a while.

“And what have I given you?” the brunet asked, and Slaine began to feel uncertain of what the other was going for.

“Hope,” he said while thinking. “Compassion and value, my humanity and individuality. All in all, during our short contact, you have given me purpose.”

‘ _I don’t need clothes on my back or a roof over my head, neither do I need toys and drugs as long as I have someone to confirm I matter. That’s all I ask for, since no one can exist all on their own_.’

“What about the food and clothes?” Inaho wondered, studying him intently as if he was looking for something in the blond’s expression.

“I count them as an act of compassion. Why?”

Inaho smiled a slight smile that told the blond he had answered correctly.

“You really are selfless,” he said. “You’re not like many other people who want things from others that they can see and touch to determine their value; you see the world from a purely subjective point of view.”

Slaine frowned and tried to remember back to what Inaho had said about being a subjective being, but he figured he was too uneducated to be able to make a connection, which made him feel stupid.

“And what does that mean?” he asked instead, admitting his defeat.

“You’re passionate,” the brunet bluntly answered, and Slaine blinked from surprise.

Even if Slaine found it somewhat ridiculous to be called passionate, he had a feeling the word did not mean what he thought it meant. Nothing in his life had been driven by the form of passion Slaine associate with the word, but he figured he should trust Inaho’s judgment and ask him about the definition the next day. Perhaps, he thought, he would learn something new yet again?

A smile spread on the blond’s lips. He knew what Inaho said was a compliment – or at least he chose to take it as one – and he looked at the brown-haired young man in front of him with gratitude. This brief moment was one of the gentlest moments he had experienced in his life. Someone had noticed the shivering gutter rat and given it a temporary warm bed to stay in with no strings attached.

Slaine knew his near future would be the greatest trial he had gone through. The Japanese government would treat him as an illegal immigrant and would provide him with only the most basic healthcare and protection. In his desperate attempt to put the painful time behind him, he would testify against a dangerous criminal and risk his life in the process.

He would also risk of being rejected by his home country and never get his identity back without any means to support himself, and he risked to be thrown back out onto the streets until he would be arrested for illegal immigration again. Perhaps he would even be targeted by Cruhteo and be snatched away back into the shadows, but, no matter what dangers lay before him, if Inaho was there to wait for him, he could find the strength to at least try to free himself from his miserable life.

‘ _I’m attached to you_ ,’ he thought and pushed his body up onto an elbow and leaned closer to the brunet. ‘ _I’m sorry for whatever troubles I will cause you. No matter what, if you stay by my side, I will fight until my last breath – since this hope you have rekindled is all I have._ ’

He felt Inaho’s breaths against his nose and cheeks as he lowered his face closer, carefully to allow the other pull away if he wished to, but he stayed still and watched Slaine with an expressionless gaze.

“Thank you for everything,” he whispered with his lips brushing the brunet’s, who lay obediently waiting for his touch. “I wanted to say that in case it might be too late tomorrow. You have saved me so many times during these past days, and I can finally breathe a little easier.”

“Slaine…” the brunet said quietly, but the blond interrupted him by closing the remaining distance between them and pushed his lips onto the other’s, gently rubbing them together. “Mmph…”

Their kiss was stiff and awkward, mostly because Inaho was clearly not used to kissing. The brunet’s lips were tightly sealed, but, after the blond coaxed him to open them with a soft and wet tongue licking the line between them, Inaho parted them slightly and allowed Slaine’s tongue inside. Curiosity awoke in the other, and their kisses slowly deepened.

A tingle spread in the pit of Slaine’s stomach, making the blond release a sultry huff when the brunet changed the angle of their kiss. Hands took a hold of Slaine’s shirt and shoulder, and the blond allowed Inaho to take whatever command he chose to take.

Slaine lowered himself onto his back by Inaho’s wordless command and allowed Inaho to climb up onto his elbow to continue kissing without releasing their lips. With men, Slaine found himself to be automatically submissive, while he was slightly dominant with women. Even now, with someone inexperienced, the blond fell onto a step lower than the brunet, allowing Inaho to be the one on top.

“Inaho…” the blond whispered between their kisses and let his hands run down Inaho’s torso and stopped on his hips. He would not mind if Inaho wanted to do it with him, and he gave the brunet a wordless hint by spreading his legs just a little. “Mmmh…” he moaned as he was kissed deeper.

‘ _Touch me…_ ’ he thought and sighed. ‘ _I’m unbearably attached to you, so I wouldn’t mind it at all_.’

Despite his unexpected need to subject himself for the other’s body, Inaho stopped kissing him out of nowhere. Slaine hazily opened his eyes to see the brunet look back at him while trying to calm down; Inaho had a hint of excitement in his eyes.

“We shouldn’t,” he said to Slaine’s disappointment. “It would be wrong to continue.”

Slaine frowned and pressed his wet lips together for a short while, before wondering out loud:

“Why? I don’t mind giving you service like this.”

“That’s why,” the brunet answered. Slaine felt taken aback. “I don’t want anyone to service me, and I don’t want you to think of me as someone taking advantage of you.”

“But Inaho-“ Slaine began confused, but was interrupted by the other:

“It’s not right to do anything like this while you think of it as some kind of service, and that’s why I want to stop here out of principles.”

‘ _In other words, you don’t find me disgusting_ ,’ the blond thought relieved.

Slaine understood what Inaho meant. He had heard that logic many times before when he had been scolded by strangers on the streets. Inaho wanted to stop as he thought of it as wrong because of how Slaine looked at the situation; the brunet wanted it to be mutual and special and not be taken as one of the blond’s clients, since it would insult both of them.

The blond found Inaho’s reasoning heartwarming, since the brunet saw him as something more than a body, even in a situation that had become slightly lustful. Not even Slaine’s kinder clients would have stopped like this once they had been riled up by the blond’s willingness to spread his legs for them for a little bit of money. Inaho, however, had taken care of him for many days and was now rejecting the blond’s offer of paying him back with his body. Perhaps, Slaine thought, compassion and lust were compatible after all?

With a smile, Slaine nodded and let go of the brunet. It felt nice to be considered as a being with human value and all of this kindness made him feel spoiled. This little moment in his short history was the most meaningful thus far, and it filled him with a warm feeling that made him not fear for tomorrow.

‘ _I’m soaring again_ ,’ he thought happily, thinking he had almost reached the heavens without the aid of Aldnoah. Only one more thing was absent that would let him climb up to paradise:

Once Inaho had lain down on the bed again, Slaine reached out his hand and took a hold of the brunet’s pajama sleeve. He held the blue fabric between his thumb and index finger and breathed in a deep breath of the brunet’s scent, and whispered gently:

“Thank you, Inaho.”

‘ _Even if I die tomorrow or the day after that…_ ’ The blond smiled happily, heart fluttering in his chest. ‘ _At least I got to taste a little bit of heaven thanks to you._ ’

 

 

_~fin~_

**Author's Note:**

> This was a trial to write, but I think I’m satisfied with this despite the difficult topic. Since this anthology has the theme of “Heavenly & Hellish”, I think the hellish theme is quite clear: being legally dead, all alone and a trafficking victim… I personally can’t think of anything worse. The heavenly theme is much more subtle, but I think it sometimes requires very little to feel blessed. Sometimes a hand to hold when things turn scary is enough, especially when the feeling of hopelessness and being abandoned are the only things that have characterized one’s life for a long time.
> 
> Inspiration was found from criminology classes about human trafficking I attended a while back, as well as social psychiatric care and crisis management. Due to the legal aspect of this all being so interesting, I kinda feel like continuing this story in a part two someday.
> 
> On another note, I finally – after about a year in my possession – stuffed up my Slaine dakimakura! It was probably one of the most awkward moments in my life, and now the pillow freaks me out… My partner jumped it immediately, though, and began perving on it and tortured it. Poor Slaine! He never seems to get a break, huh? (T__T)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed, and thank you for reading!


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